Telegrams and Teacakes: A heartbreaking World War Two family saga, page 10
‘The heavens have opened!’ he said, pacing towards her. ‘I was going to suggest a walk, but we might just as well go for a swim.’
Her doubts vanished. She grinned at Sam and took in all the details about him. So smartly turned out, even in the rain – he’d clearly polished his boots and buttons, had scrubbed and shaved and slicked back his hair. His teeth were pearly white and a dimple appeared in his left cheek when he smiled, but it was his eyes she was really taken with. They seemed to hold her, like warm hands, when he fixed her with his gaze.
‘Let’s go to a dance,’ he said, ‘and get out of this rain. I want to teach you how to jitterbug. Unless you’re hungry? We could eat first if you’re hungry?’
Betty shook her head. In her mind a distant voice was whispering at her to tell Sam she couldn’t go to a dance, that she’d just had awful news that someone close to her family was dead and that she needed time to think about her life. But the words didn’t come.
‘Yes, but I…’ she said hesitantly. ‘It’s difficult, I’m in an awkward situation…’
She rubbed her forehead and chewed the inside of her cheek, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of the town centre.
‘Let’s forget all our troubles tonight,’ he said, seeming to read her mind. ‘Let’s be two young people going to a dance. Nothing more, nothing less. The war, Hitler, whatever – they can all go to hell for a few hours. I know I could do with having some fun. Agreed?’
Betty felt a smile stretch across her face.
‘Agreed,’ she said. ‘I’d like that very much.’
She slotted her arm through his, pushed away the image of Robert that kept popping into her mind and focussed on Sam, this brave young man, so far from his home, so far from everything and everyone he knew. Just like her, he was reaching out for a friend in all the chaos and strangeness that was the spring of 1942.
* * *
‘You’re pretty good!’ Sam laughed. ‘You’ve done this before!’
‘No, I really haven’t!’ Betty replied breathlessly as she grabbed the bottom of her skirt and swished it to the music, an energetic rendition of ‘Bugle Boy’, played by a local band. She had to admit, she was pretty good at the basic jitterbug; and she had discovered that when she was dancing with Sam, all her troubles just flew out of her mind, as if each of her worries had wings. It made her want to keep dancing and never stop, but eventually she felt her legs begin to ache and her energy flag. She signalled to Sam that she needed a drink. He instantly stopped dancing and they pushed their way through crowds of young people over to the bar area, which was flooded with Canadian airmen and troops and girls from Poole and Bournemouth, chattering excitedly. Ordering drinks and finding them seats in a quieter part of the dancehall, Sam began to tell Betty about his life back home and how he’d dreamed of being a pilot since he was a small boy.
‘I’m due to be posted on active service any time soon,’ he continued. ‘It’s what I’ve wanted, but now it’s coming, I can’t lie, I guess I fear it’ll be a one-way journey. In my letters home I have to be careful how I word it all. I don’t want to worry my family. Oh hey, I’m sorry to be gloomy. Sometimes it just comes out.’
‘Do you have a sweetheart in Canada?’ she asked. Sam shook his head.
‘I was never interested in settling down,’ he explained. ‘I wanted to travel and see some of the world before I did. Besides, I’ve never found the right girl. And you?’
Betty found herself lost for words. Wishing she hadn’t brought up the subject of sweethearts, she swallowed hard. Not knowing how to tell him about her marriage to Robert, or the impossible situation she’d found herself in, she lowered her eyes and bit her bottom lip before giving him a small smile, trying to communicate that it was all too complicated to explain. Sam read her body language quite differently. Leaning over the table towards her as if he wanted to tell her something, he gave her a gentle kiss, first on the cheek and then on the lips. In her head a voice was yelling at her to pull her head away, get up from that table and walk back to her digs, but her body overruled her head and stayed rooted to the spot. Electrified, her lips tingled as she closed her eyes and kissed him back. Feeling as though she was floating up to the ceiling as the kiss continued, she felt as though she was watching herself from afar, shocked and excited by her own bold behaviour, but knowing deep down that she was playing a dangerous game.
Chapter Thirteen
While Betty danced and kissed the night away, Elsie and William had lain in bed unable to sleep, each of them independently dreading the next day when they had planned to travel to Eastbourne and visit David’s mother. White-faced, anxious and sleep-deprived, they now sat together on the train in their smartest clothes, holding hands, fear of the unknown between them like a chasm.
‘So much land has been requisitioned for military use,’ Elsie said, gazing out of the window at the fields that were now under military control, ‘it’s a wonder the farmers are able to produce any food at all.’
‘Mmm,’ said William, not really listening. ‘Do you think it’s too much for me to just turn up at the door like this? Should I have written first?’
Elsie squeezed William’s hand reassuringly. In truth, she had no idea what to expect from David’s mother, who neither of them knew anything about. Elsie also had no idea whether, even if David’s mother was forgiving of William’s dilemma, it would ease his dreadful guilt. But it was worth a try. William needed to do it, to face his demons, and so she would stand by him.
‘I think it’s better you go and see her,’ Elsie said. ‘If she has questions, she can ask them, there and then. A letter can be misinterpreted or misunderstood. This is a brave thing to do, William. Very brave.’
She immediately regretted her words. Brave was the last thing he felt, she knew. He sighed and looked away from her, loosening his hand from her grip, and stared blankly out of the window. She had never meant to patronise him; tears rushed into her eyes and a painful lump in her throat made swallowing difficult. It felt impossible to get it right, but she must never give up. Blinking madly, she felt in her bag for the small tin of barley sugar that Audrey had given her.
‘Would you like one?’ she said, offering William the tin. ‘Audrey had two left over from Christmas. They’re still good, bit sticky maybe.’
‘I couldn’t eat a thing,’ he said curtly. For a moment she stared at the two sweets in the tin before putting the lid back on, pushing them into her bag, leaning her head against the seat and closing her eyes.
* * *
‘Do come in,’ said David’s mother, Alice Fielding, a tall, elegant woman dressed in mourning clothes. It was typical for widows to wear black for a year to eighteen months after the death of their husband, and for other close family to wear mourning dress for around six months. It had been over a year since David had been killed, but Elsie knew better than anyone that time wasn’t necessarily the best healer.
‘Thank you,’ said Elsie, briefly taking Alice’s cool fingers in hers as she and William entered the house. In the hallway, they stood for a moment, disorientated by the darkness. Many of the blinds in the house were drawn – a tradition usually followed for several days after a death to let neighbours know that a family were grieving – but these had obviously been closed for months and the house was dingy and airless. Alice gestured for Elsie and William to go on through to the small living room and sit on chairs that were set around an unlit fire, then quickly scooped up a handful of photographs from the rug on the floor and pushed them under a book.
‘Can I get you…?’ she said, her sentence trailing off to nothing.
‘No, not at all,’ said William hurriedly. ‘Thank you.’
Elsie scanned the living room. There was little in it: a walnut wood wireless with a little model of a boat resting on top of it, which looked like it may have been made by a child. In the corner stood an upright piano, covered with a dustsheet. On the mantelpiece were a clock and two vases displaying several peacock feathers. Above the fireplace, on the wall, was a photograph of a child who Elsie presumed was a young David. Pulling her eyes away from his joyful face, Elsie studied Alice, whose face was milky white and reminiscent of William’s pallor when he spent days on end in the bedroom, refusing to come out. Alice sat down with what seemed like tremendous effort, as if her skeleton ached.
‘So,’ she said, her face contorting as she tried to control her emotion, ‘you want to talk to me about my son.’
Feeling suddenly breathless and trapped by the sheer weight of grief in the room, Elsie longed to raise the blinds and throw open the windows; let sunlight flood the rooms, put on the wireless, fill the vases with daffodils and tulips – but of course she couldn’t. When William didn’t immediately answer and instead stared awkwardly at his hands as if they held the answer, Elsie spoke instead.
‘It’s good of you to see us,’ she said. ‘William has wanted to talk to you ever since he returned home.’
‘Returned home’ hung like a bad smell in the room and Alice sucked in her cheeks at the tactless words. William silenced Elsie with a glare and she stopped talking at once, giving Alice an apologetic shake of her head. Alice simply nodded slightly and turned to William.
‘As I mentioned on the doorstep, Mrs Fielding, I knew your son,’ said William. ‘We became good friends. He talked of you and of his home often. He said you were a great pianist. I’m desperately sorry for your loss. You must be… devastated.’
Alice remained perfectly still, her back as straight as a rod. She let out a short, exasperated sigh.
‘Do you know that when my husband was killed in the Great War, I was not allowed to attend his funeral?’ she said. ‘I was deemed too emotional by a doctor and was banned from going.’
She directed her words to William and Elsie, but her mind was focussed on a different scene – a moment in time burned onto her memory with a branding iron.
‘That’s simply dreadful,’ said William. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
Though Elsie was desperate to make eye contact with William, each of them remained wholly focussed on Alice.
‘Just before he died I lost a baby,’ she continued. ‘So it was just David and me left here together. When the call-up papers came for David, I walked up to the bluebell woods about a mile away from here, out of his earshot, and I screamed. Do you know, there was another mother there from the town doing the exact same thing? We laughed together once we’d finished screaming. But I sensed it then, before he even left, that he would never return.’
William opened his mouth to speak, but Alice got up slowly from her seat and moved to a writing desk in the corner, where she opened a small drawer, reached inside and pulled out a letter. Returning to her chair, she unfolded the letter carefully and cleared her throat. Out of the corner of her eye, Elsie saw William grip the arms of his chair, his nails making indents in the velvet fabric. In the tense silence, Elsie hardly dared breathe.
‘Dear Mother,’ Alice read. ‘It’s not so bad here. I’m having an adventure of sorts and making new friends. One chap, William, from Bournemouth, is awfully good at the harmonica. His tunes help lift all our spirits. Don’t worry about me, Mother, I’ll be fine, I am fine. Love to you always. David.’
Without looking up, Alice placed the letter down on the table with shaking hands. Eventually she fixed William with her pale blue eyes and gave him the smallest smile.
‘Thank you, William,’ she said, her voice wavering. ‘For lifting my boy’s spirits.’
Visibly trembling, William rubbed his brow with the back of his hand. With sweat prickling her forehead and her heart hammering in her chest, Elsie didn’t know whether to stay quiet or interject. She desperately wanted for Alice to see and understand the real William, the man she’d fallen in love with, the man David had been friends with.
‘You’ve nothing to thank me for,’ he said, clasping his hands together and leaning forward in his chair. ‘Mrs Fielding, Alice, I need to explain to you what happened in France. Can you bear to hear it?’
Alice nodded once, lifting a white handkerchief to her mouth with a shaking hand. It was agonising to watch, and Elsie felt waves of nausea pass over her. How unimaginably unbearable it must be for a mother to lose her child.
‘We were on an exercise in a small forest, David and I,’ William started, every word clearly causing him pain. ‘We were making progress when suddenly I came across a young German soldier who was stranded in a hideout. He must have been no more than eighteen years old – he looked as if he could have been as young as fourteen. His skin was freckled, his hair flopped over his eyes. He looked like the kind of kid I was at school with. I lifted my gun to kill him, as we had been trained to do, but that day, I couldn’t shoot. It was his eyes. He seemed barely older than a child. I let him escape. David didn’t openly judge me, but I knew he thought I had been weak… but then, when I thought he was long gone, the German boy turned back.’
William exhaled and closed his eyes for a moment, as if gathering his strength.
‘The German boy turned back and he—’ William’s voice cracked as he tried to complete his story. ‘He shot David in the chest and stomach.’
Tears streamed down William’s face and off the end of his nose as he struggled to talk. He didn’t wipe them away.
‘David instantly collapsed next to me on the floor,’ he spluttered, breaking down into sobs. ‘I tried to stem his bleeding, but the blood was everywhere and the more I cried out for help, the more distant he seemed to become. In minutes he was dead. I have seen dozens of soldiers die, but when David died, it was as if a light went out. I carried his body as far as I could, but… it was no good, I was not strong enough.’
Alice was in floods of tears now, holding the handkerchief to her face.
‘I should have killed that soldier,’ William said, tears rushing from his eyes, his mouth contorted and the words coming out in between bursts of sobbing. Elsie glanced at her hands and realised she’d been squeezing her fists so tight she’d drawn blood in her palms.
‘If I had shot that soldier, your son David would be alive,’ he said to Alice, whose head was bent as she wept. Slipping from the edge of the chair onto his knees, in front of Alice’s chair, with his hand on his heart he cowered in front of her.
‘I killed him,’ he wept. ‘I’m so sorry. Your son was a brilliant young man and soldier. He was my friend. I killed him, I watched him die.’
Elsie screwed up her face. It was the most pathetic sight she had ever seen. Her heart felt utterly smashed and her head ached with pity for William and Alice – but she also burned with fury. William had not killed David and for him to say so was utter madness. Suddenly questioning the wisdom of this journey, she stood from her seat, wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and moved to William to help him up from the floor.
‘I think,’ she said, to Alice, ‘I think we should leave.’
Alice suddenly stood up, knocking over the side table as she moved, and disappeared out of the room. A second later she came back, holding a shotgun.
‘Get out of my house,’ she said, pointing the gun at William. Elsie whimpered, but then gathered her wits. William continued to cry, his body limp.
‘Alice,’ she said steadily, ‘please, this won’t help. We will go. William wanted to tell you how your son died. He didn’t kill him. He’s suffering himself, he’s—’
Alice turned the shotgun to Elsie.
‘OUT!’ she roared at the top of her lungs, spittle flying from her lips. Elsie grabbed hold of William and more or less shoved him out of the room, into the dark hallway and towards the front door. Before leaving, she turned back to see Alice standing there with her shotgun, a woman wrecked by grief, a mother truly broken. Quickly, she closed the door behind them, grabbing William’s hand and pulling him onto the street.
After he’d staggered a few yards up the street on his crutches William pulled on her hand, gesturing that he needed to stop. Leaning his back up against a wall, he covered his face with his hand and slipped down to the pavement, where he sat in a wretched state, his shoulders heaving up and down as he wept. Kneeling by his side, Elsie prised his fingertips away from his face and lifted his chin to face her.
‘William,’ she said. ‘Stop now. You have to stop this now.’
‘I can’t,’ he said, his teeth chattering and his eyes staring into the far distance. ‘I can’t stop.’
Pure terror ripped through Elsie as she watched her once cheerful and handsome husband quiver and whimper in what she could only describe as hysteria.
‘She should have shot me,’ he said angrily, lifting his fingers and pushing them roughly against his temple, as if they were a gun. ‘If I had a gun, I’d do it myself.’
He almost spat his words at Elsie, pulling his lips over his teeth in a wild, furious state. Lifting his face up to hers, he shook his head before sobbing: ‘I’d rather be dead than live like this.’
Her actions were driven by pure instinct. She was usually the last person to resort to violence, but this wasn’t a rational decision. She lifted her right hand high in the air and brought it down swiftly across William’s cheek, slapping him round the face with some force.
‘Don’t ever say that again,’ she hissed. ‘Get up off the floor this minute and let’s go home.’
