Polly's War (35 page)

And if she ever suffered a pang of guilt for acting upon their love then Lucy would remind herself of how cold and unfeeling Tom was, of how he could have written and told her that he lived, yet had chosen not to do so. Lucy was utterly convinced that he was lying to her about whatever happened to him back then, that there was much he could tell her if had he a mind to. If she could but discover the truth of those missing years, then she would be free.

She watched with some envy as Benny slowly rebuilt his life, caring for his son, working with his mother in an easy and friendly fashion. Her own relations with Polly remained distant following her shameful behaviour on the bus. On two occasions Lucy had plucked up the courage to go round to Polly’s house specifically to apologise and talk about the problem. She longed to unburden herself and ask advice on what she should do, or rather ask how she could leave her husband without suffering guilt, a seemingly impossible quest. The first time Polly wasn’t in. On the second she found her putting a cold compress on Charlie’s knee which, as well as being swollen with painful arthritis, sported a massive purple bruise.

‘ I was only weeding the marigolds along the back yard wall,’ he ruefully admitted.

‘You’re supposed to be resting, not gardening,’ Polly scolded.

‘I’m tired of resting and it isn’t doing any good. Trouble is the knee doesn’t always behave as I tell it,’ Charlie joked. But this incident, not the first by any means, had so clearly upset Polly it somehow didn’t seem the right moment to impose further worries upon her mother.

Lucy brewed tea for them all and sat for an hour listening and sympathising over the agonies Charlie suffered, the various treatments and ‘cures’ they’d tried, not to mention the pressures of Polly’s business. Then she went home without even mentioning her own troubles.

When the precious Thursday came round again, Lucy put on a new frock, one she’d made herself, finding the money for it by pinching a penny here and there out of the housekeeping. But for once, Michael failed to notice for his distress over their situation was growing. Lucy strived to placate him, to make him understand that however much they might want to be together, Tom needed her more, for now. But his pleas grew so heated they came close to quarrelling.

‘And what about
my
needs?’

‘We must be patient.’

‘For how much longer? I love you Lucy and want to spend the rest of my life with you, not simply snatched moments in this seedy hotel.’ Looking out through the smeared glass of their bedroom retreat onto a dingy back street piled high with rubbish and rust-caked dustbins, Lucy couldn’t help but agree.

She unbuttoned her dress, let it fall to the floor in a soft whisper, heard Michael’s stifled gasp as she stood before him in her brassiere and French knickers, his eyes riveted to the outline of her nipples pressing against the flesh coloured silk. His voice, when he found it, was hoarse with longing. ‘It’s marriage I want, Lucy, not just sex. A proper life for us both.’

Lucy put her hands to her cheeks and began to cry.

‘Don’t. Oh lord, how I want you.’ He went to her then, smoothed back her hair and cupped her small face in his hands. ‘You know that I love you. I used to think we could run off and live together. But much as I want to be with you, it’s no good pretending that would be an easy decision, because it wouldn’t. In the eyes of the whole world we’d be living in sin.’

She slid a hand up about his neck and kissed his chin, his mouth, the roughness of his cheek. ‘I don’t call it a sin to love someone as we do.’

‘Folk like Lily Gantry would have a field day.’

‘I don’t care. Let them do their worst, we’d be happy at least.’ She felt desperate suddenly to get away from Tom, to feel safe and start life anew with the man she truly loved, yet knew she lacked the courage to leave, or ask Tom for a divorce. Perhaps living together was the only way out for them. What was so shocking about that? She pressed closer, pushing the softness of her breasts against the hardness of his chest, teasing him and bringing a smile at last to his lips with her display of wantonness. ‘Maybe Tom would give up the fight to hold on to me, if he saw how happy we were together.’

His face was in her hair, breathing in the sweet, exciting scent of her. ‘What about the children? How would they feel about it? They’d be ostracised at school, all their mates teasing them.’ He asked this in such a quiet, sensitive way that Lucy dropped her gaze so that
 
he couldn’t read the fear in her eyes. If they didn’t solve this problem would she lose him? She hardly dared think of that.

‘It wouldn’t matter They both adore you, you know they do.‘

‘Try talking to Tom first, Lucy, sensibly and honestly. I’d come and speak to him myself, only that would be more likely to inflame him. Tell him you’ve done your best but that we need to be together, no matter what. Ask him for a divorce. I’ll find the money to pay for it somehow.’

He stroked her cheek and meeting the loving urgency of his gaze, for the first time in months Lucy felt a surge of hope for the future, a new sense of freedom. ‘All right. I’ll try once more, I promise.’

‘Be firm this time,’ Michael insisted, pulling her down beside him on to the grubby sheets so he could remove these last silken impediments to their loving with his own eager hands. ‘Be firm but kind. Show him you mean it this time.’

‘I will.’ Lucy was drowning in her need for him, helping him with the buttons and hooks. ‘I shall be absolutely determined. Believe me.’

The next week passed in an agony of indecision. Time after time Lucy attempted to summon up the courage to broach the subject. But life was going along quite smoothly for once and she felt a reluctance, a fear almost, to spoil it. Tom even allowed her to have little Matt one afternoon, to give Doris-next-door a rest, which was lovely.

So the following week when they met, she admitted to Michael she hadn’t yet found the right moment to mention divorce. He looked so hurt and disappointed that she struggled to explain her reluctance. ‘Tom is working hard, settling in nicely at his new job. I’m afraid to risk upsetting him. It isn’t easy for me, Michael. He can be up one minute and down the next. Life is so much better when he’s calm, as he seems to be at the moment.’

‘Better for
you
maybe,’ Michael grunted, disappointment causing an uncharacteristic bitterness to curl his lips. ‘Not for me.’

‘Are you suggesting that I didn’t really try?’

‘How would I know? What proof do I have? I’m just your
fancy man
.’

‘Don’t say such a thing. You know it’s not like that. You know that I love you, and want to be with you.’ Not for the world did she want Michael to suspect this foolish fear that was growing inside her that Tom was only too aware of where she went every Thursday evening, yet chose not to mention it. Why she thought that, she couldn’t say but if she was right, then it somehow made her extra wary of raising the subject of leaving him. It was as if one word from her might topple him from this pinpoint of patience upon which he balanced.

As summer progressed and the country talked of little else but the hope of a Royal wedding it became ever harder to keep Michael happy. Even Lucy began to shudder at the stained sheets they must lie on, the cobwebs festooning the cracked lamp shade above their heads and the fly-spotted mirror as she replaced her lipstick after their lovemaking. It all began to feel cheap and sordid as they furtively made sure they caught different buses back to Castlefield. Yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to walk out on a husband who was clearly unstable, damaged by a war he’d never asked to be a part of, and would allow his wife and children to live in a free world.

By August Lucy knew she had fallen pregnant. She was quite certain that Michael must be the father, perhaps because she wanted him to be. Tom had bothered her less lately so it seemed likely, but how could she be sure? How could she go to either her lover or her husband and say with any conviction or sense of joy that she bore his child. She decided to say nothing to either. After all, it might prove to be a false alarm, and the delay would give her time to think.

Delay, in fact, only made Lucy worry more. She felt herself shrink a little whenever she felt Tom’s eyes upon her, almost as if he knew what was happening inside her own body.

Afraid she might start to show, she took to wearing a corset whenever she was at home with Tom or out and about where people would see her, pulling the pink laces in quite tight. Only when she was with Michael did she leave it off, half hoping he would notice the slight thickening of her waistline and then she might at last find the courage to tell him of her suspicions.

It shamed and troubled her to discover how indecisive and weak she was becoming, as if she’d forgotten who she was and had lost all faith in herself. Why didn’t she just come out with it and tell Michael she was pregnant with his child. Tell Tom she was leaving him. Tell Polly ... Oh, lord, she couldn’t.

What she dreaded most was what her mother would say.

Not that Polly would have noticed anyway, she was too caught up in her own business. Perhaps she didn’t even care, Lucy thought, uncharitable in her misery.

While little Matt struggled to shake off a summer cold, Benny grew increasingly harassed trying to cope with a fractious baby all night while maintaining a full day’s work at the shop. Despite his own concerns, even he realised Lucy wasn’t herself when he again asked if she’d mind baby Matt for an afternoon, and she sadly refused.

‘Where’s that bright rebel of a sister I once had?’ he teased. ‘I know you’re missing Belinda. I am too, for Christ sake, but life goes on. We can’t stop in bed and grieve for ever, much as we might want to.’ He had to pause here to compose himself before continuing. ‘Couldn’t you have the babby now and then, Luce. I feel awful putting on good old Doris all the time.’

‘It’s not that. It’s - it’s Tom. He doesn’t like me working. He thinks I have enough to do.’

‘Ask him again,’ Benny argued. ‘Use your feminine charms.’ Lucy merely looked at him and knew, deep in her heart, that the longer she put off confronting Tom about anything, the less likely she would ever to find the courage.

In the first week of September, Lucy called upon her mother at the warehouse. Polly showed her usual pleasure at seeing her daughter but barely paused in her labours of setting up a new loom with her mate, Maisie Wright, except to ask if she wanted a job as a spool setter, as she’d be needing another.

Lucy thanked her for the offer, wishing fervently she could accept but knowing Tom would never agree. Besides, if it was true and there was a baby on the way, what would be the point? She felt desperate to share the agony of her suspicions with someone who cared, but Polly was too busy explaining the process to listen.

‘See here, each square on the pattern sheet has been given a number relating to the particular shade of wool to be used, a total of two hundred and fifty-two for the pattern width. Then we set out the correct shade of bobbins on to this spool table, in rows of colours which correspond to the pattern of squares. Clever eh?’

‘Mam, can I just have a word.’

‘Course you can m’cushla. Then these threads see, will be wound in short lengths on to spools and then taken over to the loom for weaving into carpet. Isn’t that clever? You’d learn it in no time.’ Polly seemed oblivious to her daughter’s distress. When Lucy didn’t respond, she glanced up, perhaps noticing for the first time her daughter’s pale cheeks and pinched expression. Polly’s shrewd gaze narrowed in that familiar way. ‘I was forgetting Tom’s views on women working. You’ll have to take that husband of yours in hand. He’s living in the past, so he is. The war has changed all that nonsense. Talk to him, Lucy. Getting a job would do you good, instead of being cooped up in the house all day. It might put a bit of colour in your cheeks. Explain that to him.’

‘I’ve tried. The thing is - it isn’t simply Tom. Actually I’m ...’

‘Aw, give me the right thread for goodness sake, Maisie. This job’s difficult enough as it is.’ Polly wiped the sweat off her brow. ‘It’s number 37 not 34. The pale blue. Keep your mind on the job and not on your new chap,’ Polly teased her friend. ‘Sorry love, what were your saying?’

‘The problem is ...’

‘Aw Maisie, will ye keep hold of it. Hadn’t I just threaded it through the flippin’ hole.’

Lucy suddenly yelled at Polly. ‘
You
talk to him. I can’t. He just won’t listen. Matter of fact, nobody ever listens to a word I have to say.’ Whereupon she turned on her heel and stalked away, head in the air. Polly stopped threading wool to gaze after her daughter in startled surprise.

‘What can be eating her? Did she get out of bed the wrong side?’ Polly shook her head in despair, pushing back a lock of hair with a tired hand before picking up the wool again and threading it through the correct slot. She longed to rush after Lucy, to ask what was wrong but this task couldn’t wait. It was desperately important that they get the loom running. Knowing it was essential that the business prosper, she’d invested heavily in this third new loom, stretching herself to the limit in order to meet the orders she had waiting. She wouldn’t be so strapped for cash if so much money wasn’t tied up in dratted furniture that wasn’t selling near fast enough for Polly’s liking. ‘What a trial life is at times.’

‘It is indeed, and then you die,’ Maisie agreed.

Polly made it her business to keep up to scratch on everything that was going on in her family and, in spite of Charlie’s advice not to interfere, could rarely resist doing so. She was always ready to take up the cudgels on their behalf and fight all comers. But now she took note of his wise words and left well alone.