Polly's War (23 page)

Not that she was sorry he was alive, how could she be? Once she would have given her life for this man. She’d loved him from being a young girl but her feelings had changed, there was no denying that fact. She loved Michael now, wholly and completely, for all they’d never actually become lovers in the true sense of the word. Oh, but that wasn’t through lack of desire. How she loved him, as if he were a part of her very soul. How could she go back to a marriage she’d thought was over for good?

On the other hand, how could she begin to explain all of this to Tom, poor man, or turn him out on the street? A soldier returned from the front, an escaped POW, her own husband and the father of her children. It was clear that he’d nowhere to go. No job, no home even - since she’d been forced to give that up years ago and move back in with Polly. And more important perhaps, he no longer had a wife. Only when the first cold rays of dawn poked fingers of pale light into the room, did exhaustion finally overwhelm her and she slept.

What seemed only moments later, she opened her eyes to find Polly, clearly delighted by the return of her son-in-law, bringing her a cup of tea in bed as a treat and volunteering to take the children to school for once. Lucy expressed her gratitude. It would give her time to talk to Tom, to explain before the Lily Gantry’s of this world did the job for her, and to make some decisions.

Lucy meant to be firm and she was, though it took more courage than she’d expected. In one way it seemed perfectly normal that they should be sitting together at the kitchen table with a pot of tea between them as once they had done years ago. Yet in another they were like polite strangers, unsure of each other and afraid of saying the wrong thing. She kept to her resolution. ‘As you see, Tom, things have changed. I genuinely believed you to be dead.’

‘So I gather. Didn’t take you long to find compensation, did it? ‘ His voice was hard, caustic and critical, jaw rigid.

‘That’s not fair. If you’d written, I would have known you were all right, wouldn’t I?.

‘So it’s my fault is it?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She got up from the table, disguising her distress by fetching a pan and fresh kippers from the pantry, busying herself preparing breakfast for him as she tried to explain. ‘It’s just that I’ve no wish to deceive you. I feel you have the right to hear the truth.’

He pointed out that she was still his wife, that he had a right to expect her to wait for him and all Lucy could do was keep repeating how she’d thought him dead, how she hadn’t planned on falling in love with Michael, and it had taken them both by surprise.

Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, her slender body wrapped in a long white apron with her hair tied up in a turban, she looked like a young girl still. Tom watched her small neat hands flip the kippers over in the frying pan as he listened to her halting tale and asked himself why he had stayed away so long. She was far more attractive, this young wife of his, than he’d remembered. He should have come home months ago. Years. He could have written. Why hadn’t he?

He knew why. She’d become almost a stranger to him during the long years of war, a distant figure whose face he could barely recall. Even his children hadn’t seemed quite real. And there were other reasons, some best not spoken about. He’d found his new life exciting and been reluctant to give it up, might never have done so if things hadn’t got tricky. But what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt either of them, particularly himself.
 

She was asking him a question. ‘What about you? Didn’t you meet anyone else in all these years you’ve been away? What stopped you from writing? A letter would have eased the shock, Tom. It would have given me hope, something to live for. Why didn’t you?’
 

 
He felt the familiar surge of anger. Questions, questions, he was sick of bloody questions. People never left him alone. Everyone he met always had the same questions. Where had he been? Why? When? What? Who was he with? He was mightily sick of it. He certainly wasn’t going to take being interrogated by an unfaithful wife so he dismissed her curiosity with a snort of laughter. ‘What are you accusing me of? Are you implying that I deliberately didn’t write? I’ve told you, I was ill. I’m the injured party here.’
 

Lucy cringed with shame as she slid a pair of kippers on to his plate. ‘Whatever Michael and I feel for each other and I don’t - can’t - deny that I’m very fond of him, we’ve done nothing about it.’

‘So you say.’

‘It’s true.’ But watching her husband tuck in to his breakfast, for the first time Lucy almost wished that it weren’t.

The newspapers the following day were saying that 50,000 couples were waiting for a divorce. They spoke of too-lengthy separations and too-hasty marriages at the start of the war, of infidelity, and of wives waking up and finding themselves married to a stranger. Lucy knew just how they felt. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, spoke of the serious lifelong obligations of marriage. Lucy didn’t want obligations. She wanted love.

The next few days were difficult. Lucy made up the alcove bed that Benny had used to sleep in and desperately tried to come to terms with being a wife again while Tom just wanted to sit in the kitchen or in the front parlour watching the world go by through the window. He had no wish, he said, to step outside the door, or start looking up old friends. Not yet. He certainly wasn’t ready to even think about finding a job. Lucy accepted all of this with a calm equilibrium. What she found harder to accept was the fact that he expected her to stay in too.

‘I can’t stop at home. I’ve a living to earn,’ she told him, but he insisted she owed him a few days of her time at least, so they could get to know each other again.

‘I’m not sure I want you working up at 179, not with that Michael Hopkins around.’

‘Don’t be silly. He isn’t around anyway, only after he’s finished work. Besides, we need the money.’

‘Now I’m back everything must change,’ he pointedly reminded her.

It was a bleak thought for she liked things the way they were. Lucy realised that she had no wish for her life to change, not in this way. But perhaps he had a point. A little time together wouldn’t be a bad thing, so long as he remained in that alcove bed. It might give them time to sort things out in a civilised fashion, without harming the children. Reluctantly she sent word to her clients, including Minnie Hopkins, that she was taking a few days off to spend with her husband.

That week seemed endless. Both Polly and Charlie tried to talk to Tom but few more facts emerged. Any hopes Lucy might have had for a heart to heart with her mother about her worries, or to admit that she didn’t feel the same about her husband, died in her throat as the warnings came thick and fast that she must be patient, and give him time to adjust. Besides, Polly was busy with her own concerns over Charlie and the warehouse and once she recognised her daughter was depressed, she assumed it to be because Tom wasn’t yet sharing her bed. Somehow Lucy never seemed to find quite the right moment to explain that she’d much rather sleep with her lover.

The children soon lost interest in him, maintaining a shy distance. This man, who was supposedly their father, felt like a stranger to them and they found it difficult to accept him as anything more at this stage. Even Sean began to avoid him, saying only, ‘You never took me fishing.’

‘I could take you now.’

‘It don’t matter. Michael took me down the canal.’

Lucy made a decision not to interfere. If he wished to get to know his children, he must set about the task himself. Despite her feelings of guilt at her own apparent betrayal, she still harboured resentment that Tom had sent no word that he was safe, nor warned her that he was coming home. Even the authorities seemed to have let her down. There’d been no letter from his commanding officer either, not a word to indicate that he was alive and well. Tom insisted that it was not uncommon for it to take six or even twelve months before relatives were informed a man had been found. A fact she found hard to believe, but without hard evidence couldn’t dispute.

Only Benny seemed enthusiastic over his brother-in-law’s return, ‘Great to see you again, old chap. We’ll go for a pint or two one night, eh?’ And he flashed Lucy a challenging glare, as if saying that he’d warned her all along that Tom would be back. Wasn’t that why he’d disapproved of her friendship with Michael Hopkins?

‘Did you ever discover who threw that brick at Michael?’ Lucy asked, without thinking that it might seem as if she were defending him.

 
Benny’s eyes flashed dangerously, the natural rivalry between brother and sister instantly sparking into action. ‘You’re not still blaming me? I wasn’t even there. Belinda and me were well on our way home by that time. Anyroad, he deserved it.’

‘Was that because he’s a conscientious objector?’ Tom asked.

Lucy instinctively opened her mouth to deny this but then the thought flashed into her mind that Tom couldn’t possibly know the rumours circulating about Michael. Not unless he’d arrived home a good deal sooner than he claimed and had overheard someone talking. She gazed thoughtfully at her husband’s placid expression of interested enquiry and wondered if it were genuine. Wisely she decided not to pursue the matter, resolving to think about it later, when she’d recovered from the shock of his unexpected return. Instead she changed the subject, reminding Benny that Tom wasn’t well enough to start drinking yet. ‘Hasn’t he only just arrived home.’

Perversely, Tom said, ‘How about tonight? We could go to the Dog and Duck, if you like.’

‘But I thought you were ill and didn’t want to go out?’ she protested, surprised by this contrariness.

‘It’s only to the pub. I can manage to go there, for God’s sake.’

He was often contrary, she discovered in the days following. Once, she offered to put his things away and he went mad, snatching the shirt she’d picked up right out of her hands. He always insisted on folding them himself, personally stowing away each item with painstaking care. He would put his cuff links in a box and lock it away in a drawer with other items he never showed her, almost as if he expected her to steal them when he wasn’t looking. On one occasion she caught a glimpse of shining metal and asked if he’d brought home a German gun. She knew many soldiers did, as a memento. He was furious, shouting and raving at her, asking if she thought he was a madman. She never went near his things after that.

Benny explained that it was because he’d spent so much time as a POW. ‘Affects ‘em that way. Makes them very possessive because of the terrible living conditions they had to endure. Give him time.’

If anyone else told her to give him time, Lucy thought she might scream. What about her? Who was going to give her time? How was she supposed to adjust? She had no desire to coax him into her bed, as everyone seemed to think. She was hoping and praying he would never ask, that he’d be content to stay in the alcove bed in the kitchen for a long, long time. Or at least until she had found a way out of this nightmare.

On Sunday night, thankful that her days of being confined in the house with Tom were nearing an end, Lucy put on her coat and announced that she was just popping up to see Minnie Hopkins and her other customers, to let them know she’d be back at work the next day as usual. ‘We need some money coming in, and I don’t want you starting work till you feel ready.’ She felt stifled, desperate to get out, as well as to see Michael again. She prayed he’d be in.

‘Don’t be long,’ Tom warned. ‘I want you back within the hour.’

‘You what?’ She laughed in disbelief that he should attempt to give her orders. ‘I’m used to coming and going as I please. I’ll not be dictated to.’

Tom picked up the newspaper, shook it open and began to read. ‘I’ve told you. Things have changed.’

Lucy felt a quick surge of anger well up within her but he merely glanced at her over the rim of his paper with that odd, disconnected sort of expression in his eyes and she remembered Polly’s warnings to give him more time, Benny cautioning her about ex-POW’s being difficult. Tom wasn’t himself. She must remember that. This man had almost died for his country, might well have endured torture and inhumanity that he couldn’t even bear to talk about, and all for his wife and children. She bit back the protest. Perhaps if she didn’t argue he’d get over his jealousy quicker and in time they’d sort everything out in a sensible fashion without hurting anyone.

‘I’ll do my best.’

As she went out through the door, his voice followed her. ‘You’ll do more than your best Lucy. You’ll learn to do as I say. And you won’t talk to that Michael Hopkins ever again. Is that clear?’
 

Lucy mumbled something unintelligible as she hurried out into the night.

Minnie was alone when she arrived, surprisingly sympathetic and avid for news. The old woman explained that Michael had gone to bed early for once, since he hadn’t been sleeping well lately, which Lucy didn’t wonder at. But Minnie did offer her a cup of tea in the kitchen, admitting to being captivated by the whole situation and clearly itching to know more. ‘What a pretty pickle, eh?’

‘Upsetting and confusing, yes.’

‘It would be. You fancy our Michael then?’

Startled by the older woman’s bluntness, Lucy realised she’d led herself up this dangerous path by spending too much time with him at the Coffee and Bun Social. Well, she’d already made the situation clear to Tom, so there was no turning back now. What did she have to hide? She stood up, walked to the sink to fetch a dish cloth to wipe up a spill of tea, anything to avoid direct eye contact. ‘I do, yes, as a matter of fact. And he fancies me. If you’ve anything to say against that, you’d best say it now.’