Pattern of Shadows (3 page)

‘Yes?’ Frank tugged on her hand. His strong fingers engulfed hers.

She felt a tremor of excitement. ‘Oh, what the heck.’

They turned and ran, at first awkwardly, and then in step.

Mary heard a faint drone in the distance. The searchlights over Grass Mount cut through the sky, lighting up the barrage balloon that hung over Bradlow, the next town.

They arrived at The Crown out of breath. Stan Green, the landlord, poked his head around the large red door, running his palm over the strands of greasy grey hair swept carefully across his head from one ear to the other. ‘Hurry up, you’re nearly too late, I were just closing up. Siren went a good ten minutes since. Warden’ll be after me. Come on, come on, get in.’

He reached an arm around the back of Frank and pushed him into the pub, slamming the door into its frame. ‘Come on, come on, I ’aven’t got all night,’ he grumbled. But he grinned at them and took the opportunity to pat Mary on the backside as they stooped to go through the
low cellar doorway. ‘Ow’s yer Dad, Mary? ’Aven’t seen him today.’

‘He’s at home, Mr Green. I think his chest’s bothering him a bit.’

They clattered down the steps into the gloom of the long narrow cellar filled with about a dozen people cramped together in the thick fug of cigarette smoke. Two gas lamps, fastened to the wall on opposite sides of the room, shed greenish pools of light. Small wooden crates, stacked three deep in a corner farthest away from the steps, were joined together by the weft and weave of thick dusty cobwebs. A few large barrels were lined up around the ramp directly under the bolted trap door in the ceiling that opened up to the street above. As Mary and Frank shoved past them, the barrels bounced against each other with a soft hollow clunk. Except for a nod of the head or a quick smile aimed in their direction their presence was ignored. Holding onto her elbow, Frank guided her towards a space between five men perched on bar stools, playing cards on the top of an upturned crate, a stubby candle flickering in the middle, and an old woman squatted on a pile of sacks, crooning into a glass of Guinness. Mary stood, uncertain whether to sit on the flagged floor or the dirty crates.

Frank unbuttoned his coat and threw it down. ‘We’ll be OK here.’ He brushed flakes of whitewash from her hair and she breathed in, savouring the male smell of his skin.

Nearby the elderly landlord and his wife were having a hissed argument, ignored by the young woman sitting nearby who was resting against a stack of boxes filled with empty bottles. Mary recognised their daughter; she was Ellen’s age but already had two children. She watched as the girl heaved a sleeping little boy further onto her
shoulder and began to breast-feed the baby hidden by the shawl she’d draped across herself.

Mary glanced at Frank but he seemed oblivious to the little family in front of him. ‘So much for getting a drink, it looks as if we’re too late.’ he said.

‘You are that, lad,’ Stan Green called. ‘Too busy getting down ‘ere to pull any more jars.’

‘I wouldn’t drink anyway,’ Mary said, dragging her arms out of her coat and leaving it across her shoulders. ‘I’ve got work in the morning. I’m on earlies … with Jean.’ She frowned. ‘I hope she got home all right.’

‘She will have.’ Frank sat down and pulled his left leg towards him so that his foot, flat on the floor, balanced him, while his right leg was stuck stiffly out in front of him. ‘I should have been on shift tonight. Still, can’t do anything about that. We might as well make the best of things.’ He shifted and groaned.

Mary remembered his obvious discomfort when they were running earlier. ‘Does it hurt?’ She saw the muscles around his jaw knot under his skin. ‘Sorry, if you don’t like talking about it…’

He shrugged. ‘No problem, it was just the running set it off. Normally it doesn’t much bother me except when I stand too much. Which is a bit of a bugger, seeing the job I’m in.’ The humour didn’t reach his eyes but she could understand that, she’d seen the same kind of reaction in many of the patients she’d treated, the self-mocking, the false jokes. When he spoke again, he said, ‘Right, which of us is going first?’

‘What?’

‘Life story – yours or mine?’

Mary stiffened. ‘I’d rather not.’

‘Well, we could be here a long time, so we’ll have to talk about something. Go on.’ He nudged her. ‘Don’t be shy.’

‘It’s not that, there’s just not a lot to tell,’ Mary said. They sat in silence. She realised he wouldn’t be put off. She sighed. ‘Oh all right then, I’m a nurse, I’ve always wanted to be a nurse. I qualified at Bradlow General and I love what I do but I’m in a hospital I wouldn’t be in if it wasn’t for this awful war. Don’t get me wrong,’ she hastened to add, ‘I chose to work at the camp when it opened in ’forty-one. I don’t think there are many that have a hospital attached to them like ours, in fact I only know of two others and there are Q.A.s there, not civilian nurses, so I was lucky.’ She repeated the words that Tom had said to her when she told him she was going to the Granville, ‘Patients are patients whoever they are,’ a phrase that had helped her whenever questioned about her job over the years. ‘I’m just there to do the work I love: nursing.’ She didn’t notice the way Frank’s mouth was pulled in at the corners. ‘It’s near home and, within a year of my being there a Sister’s post became vacant. I applied and got it.’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘That’s it really.’ She wasn’t prepared to tell him about all the rows she’d had from her father over her decision to work at the camp or about the fact that he ignored her if she mentioned the hospital, though she knew he was glad enough of the extra money her promotion had brought into the house.

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Frank shook his head. ‘I want you to tell me about you. Have you got a chap? What do you like doing when you’re not working? Have you got a chap? Your hopes, your dreams? Or…’ He held out his hand, palm upwards and laughed. ‘Have you got
a chap?’ He hadn’t spoken quietly but no one appeared to be interested in them. Still, she didn’t answer. ‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘let’s talk about something else. How about families? Tell me about your family. Patrick’s told me a bit.’ She glanced at him. ‘Just pub chat, you know. He said you have a sister?’

‘Yes. Ellen.’

‘What does she think about all this?’ He waved his hand around. She could hear the crump of bombs in the distance.

‘She’s too busy chasing the boys and finding ways to look beautiful,’ she said. ‘No, actually, that’s not fair. She works in the munitions factory, even though she hates it. She always swore she was going on the stage, she’s a good singer and dancer. But the war’s put paid to that idea for now, it seems. She’s lovely. We get on well. That’s all, really.’

They’d all been involved in the usual school plays and the pageants and procession that the Church had organised, even Tom, although he always managed to keep in the background. But only Ellen had really enjoyed it. Mary remembered watching her practice her lines, her movements, even her smile, in the mirror so that as a child she wasn’t sure if Ellen was genuinely happy or, as Mary often remarked, just, ‘arranging her face for a performance.’ Mind, she had to admit Ellen was good; she was, as their mother often said, ‘light as a feather on her feet and with the voice of an angel.’ She’d been taken on by the Apollo Theatre in Bradlow when she was not quite fourteen. True, it was only in the chorus but, as Bill had boasted one night after he’d warded off what he called ‘the door johnnies’ and escorted her home, the producer had
told him she was destined for great things. Ellen had been unbearable for weeks. Mary could smile about it now but at the time she could have cheerfully throttled her sister.

She realised Frank was still speaking. ‘Sorry, what?’ she said.

‘I asked if she was good.’

‘Oh, yes. Yes she was, but the theatre where she was closed down in ’forty-two and she had to get a job.’ She didn’t add that Bill had refused to let Ellen go to London to be in a show there. ‘Look, let’s talk about something else, all right?’

‘OK.’

The noise outside faded away and conversation between the groups resumed. Mary struggled to think of a subject. Eventually she said, ‘Tell me about you, how you finished up in Ashford.’

He pinched his earlobe between thumb and forefinger. ‘The army helped me to get into the security side of the MOD and the pay’s OK. The Granville’s a cushy number, if I’m honest, and at least I get the satisfaction of seeing some of them bastard Krauts locked up, so I can’t complain.’

For a moment Mary thought about the young German soldier in the hospital and wondered if he was still suffering. ‘It must have been a bad injury for you to be out of the army so young. I have a friend who still works at Bradlow General and she says they’re patching them up and sending them back to France as soon as possible these days.’

‘Yes, well, they couldn’t bloody patch me up enough at the time to make me useful to them, so they got rid.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’

‘No, take no notice. It’s a bit of a touchy subject. I wanted to carry on, but all they offered in the regiment was a desk job and that wasn’t me, so here I am. I brought my mother up here with me. She’d been living on her own, just outside Rhyl in North Wales, so she’s glad of the company, and I can keep an eye on her. Anyhow,’ he said with a smile, ‘I’m fine now and if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met you, now, would I?’ He put his other hand to his chest and said, in a theatrical voice, ‘The love of my life.’

Mary couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her or not. Staring down at the floor, she felt her face flush. ‘Don’t talk daft.’

Neither spoke for a few minutes. They listened to the increased noise of engines above them. She felt his right leg beginning to tremble slightly and making an impatient clicking noise through his teeth, he pushed down hard on his bad knee until the shaking stopped.

‘This place reminds me of France,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I said this place –’ he held out his hands and spread his fingers ‘– reminds me of somewhere I was in France.’

‘Oh.’ She waited. ‘Is that where … where you were hurt?’ God, what a stupid thing to ask. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t remember feeling this awkward since her first date. Her one and only proper date, she corrected herself; studying and work had prevented what her father called ‘shenanigans’. She turned her head away, knowing her cheeks were scarlet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said

‘It’s OK.’ Frank took a packet of Woodbines out of his jacket pocket, tugged the flap open and pulled out a
half-smoked
cigarette. Striking a match, he cupped his hands
around the flame and lit it. Loudly inhaling he tipped his head back and blew a spiral of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘It was an old lace factory on the border of France and Belgium near a place called Lille.’ He slapped his hand on the gritty flags next to him. ‘We slept on the stone floor there the whole winter of ’39. It was in the middle of a bloody swamp. For some daft reason they had us laying miles of barbed wire setting up defence posts. We never did work out why.’

There was a burst of laughter from one corner of the cellar. Two young women were looking in Frank’s direction and whispering. One raised a hand and waved at him. He grinned at them and nodded. ‘Two of the regulars here,’ he explained. ‘Pair of tarts.’

The fleeting annoyance she’d felt towards the girls subsided. She’d always envied the ones who went so casually into public houses, but if Frank’s opinion was typical of what men truly thought perhaps the war hadn’t changed people’s values that much after all. She took in a quick breath; she should try talking to Ellen again. Maybe she and her friends weren’t as ‘modern’ as they thought.

Frank was speaking again. ‘First two months it never stopped raining. Then the cold weather set in.’ He jerked his chin upwards. ‘It was bloody freezing. We had two blankets each, two sodding blankets. We were supposed to wash in a mobile bath unit but nobody wanted to take their clothes off so we stayed mucky,’ he snorted, ‘and stinking … not that we cared.’ The two vertical lines etched between his eyebrows deepened.

‘In the January we were moved to a place called Arras. That’s where a flu bug hit us. The “blitz flu” they called it. I didn’t get it but I lost two mates to it.’ He stopped and
taking a deep drag on the cigarette, rested the back of his head on the wall.

Mary drew her legs towards her chest and held on to her knees. She felt the quivering of the outstretched limb again, against her buttock, aware this time that he disregarded the movement. The cigarette, held inwards towards his palm between his fingers and thumb, was close to his flesh but he seemed indifferent to the heat of the burning tobacco. His teeth, the front two slightly overlapping, were clamped on his lower lip. Then he shrugged and gave a short laugh. ‘Do you know what the worst bit was? The boredom … the waiting … the not knowing what the hell we were doing there. We were all fired up to kill the bloody Jerries and we never saw a bloody one. Not then anyway.’ He sneered. ‘Saw too many of the bastards later.’ Suddenly he swore and dropped the burning stub onto the floor. As he crushed it underfoot he flapped his hand, embarrassed. The landlord laughed but his wife called out, ‘You OK, lad?’

‘Yeah.’ Frank turned to Mary. ‘Now look what you’ve done, getting me to rabbit on.’ He said in a wry tone, ‘You should have shut me up.’

‘It was interesting.’ The trivial words hung in the air. Embarrassed she said, ‘I mean …’

Frank rolled his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry about it. Nothing you can say, really.’ His voice trailed away. Suddenly he said, ‘Patrick’s angry about being in the mines, isn’t he? He told me how he tried to join up, how he drew the short straw. He should realise how lucky he is. It looks like it’s no picnic out there now. I bet your mother is relieved he’s not in the thick of it, being her only son, like.’

So Patrick hadn’t told him about Tom. Typical. But in a way she was glad her younger brother wouldn’t have told his friend what her older brother was really like. Both Patrick and her father had seen Tom’s stance as an insult to them. Bill had despised the sight of his stepson for years. Tom revealing his loathing for war, five years ago, gave him the perfect excuse to totally reject him. And Patrick was so terrified that anyone would think he felt the same never had a good word to say about Tom. ‘He’s not her only son. I have another brother,’ Mary now said and then stopped; she wasn’t ready to tell him about Tom. She straightened her legs and leant on the wall. The cold stone dug into her back.