As Time Goes By (33 page)

It was gone ten o’clock when she finally heard Alex’s key in the door. She didn’t wait for him to see her and come to her, choosing instead to go to him so that when he stepped into the hall she was waiting there for him.

Without a word she went to him and helped him off with his hat and coat and his muffler, all damp from the rain the wind was slanting against the windows.

‘Sally …’

She could hear weary resignation and anguish in his voice, and she knew he was anticipating that
she was about to resume their earlier painful discussion. They
would
have to talk, but for now something else was more important, and that something else was the gift that she had been waiting to give him; the gift of their future together.

She put her finger to her lips and shook her head, and then she went to him and stood up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around him and tell him tenderly, ‘I love you, and I want us to be together.’ And then she kissed him.

She could feel the wild thrill of emotion grip him and run through him, his body shaking slightly as though he could hardly dare to believe what he had heard.

Tears filled his eyes and spilled down onto his cheeks. ‘Oh, my love, my precious, precious love. You don’t know …’ He broke off and shook his head as though his emotions had taken him beyond mere words. ‘When I left you earlier I was in such despair. I felt that all life could hold for me now was my duty to my patients, and that without that there would be no purpose in my going on. Not that that was a new feeling for me – it wasn’t. After the death of the boys my guilt at not being there to save them filled me with such a loathing for myself that if it hadn’t been for my doctor’s oath only to preserve life I might have been tempted to take my own, although that of course would have been more of an escape than a punishment.

‘And then there was you, with your loveliness and your spirit. If you hadn’t stolen away my heart that day I saw you in the street, then you most
certainly would have done when I heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice, I’m surprised that you don’t sing in public more, although I admit I would be jealous in case I lost you to some handsome admirer.’

‘That will never happen,’ Sally assured him, sensing his vulnerability. ‘I do love to sing, but I’ve never been that keen on being on the stage. I’m not ambitious enough, that’s what I’ve bin told, and I reckon that it’s true. I’ve certainly never wanted to be one of them singers wot travels round all over the place.’ She shook her head. ‘No, me kids and me home are what matter most to me.’

‘And me – do I matter to you, Sally?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted huskily. ‘You, me kids and us being together, that’s all I really want, Alex. And p’haps singing in church now and again,’ she allowed with a smile. ‘Mind you,’ she reminded him, ‘you’re saying now that I have a lovely voice, but you certainly didn’t look like you was enjoying listening to it that night at the Grafton. Glared at me something fierce, you did.’

‘That’s because I was so jealous,’ Alex repeated. ‘There you were, looking and sounding so lovely, with every man in the place adoring you – what chance would I have, a dull doctor, when there were all those handsome men in uniform?’

‘You are not to say you are dull, because it isn’t true,’ Sally chided him.

‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘Well, in that case we must just be dull together,’ Sally told him lovingly.

‘Oh, Sally.’ Alex’s voice was full of emotion. ‘I feel like I’ve been granted a miracle – three miracles, in fact, with you and the boys.’

Sally laughed. ‘I shall remind you of that the next time two of your miracles are making a nuisance of themselves disturbing your peace.’

‘I shall love them as my own, Sally, and that is my solemn promise, not just to you and to them but to their father as well.’

Now it was Sally’s turn to feel tears welling up in her eyes.

‘I shall love them as my own,’ he continued, ‘but there must always be a place in their hearts where they can cherish Ronnie. It will be up to both of us to make sure that they grow up knowing about their father, and all that he was, all that men like him gave up for us and for this country. I take that as a sacred duty that I shall do my utmost to fulfil.’

How could she ever have thought of denying her sons the goodness of such a man in their lives? Doris had been so right to caution her to think beyond her own immediate guilt and fear of gossip. What did that matter when set against the loving kindness of a man like this? How fortunate she was, when she had done so little to deserve such good fortune.

‘Promise me you mean what you’ve just said to me,’ Alex insisted.

‘I mean it,’ Sally assured him.

He was bending his head to kiss her, but she stopped him, whispering, ‘Not yet. There’s something else I have to tell you …’

She could feel the anxiety he was fighting to conceal as he waited for her to continue and an even more intense surge of love welled up inside her.

‘You’ve burned my dinner?’ he guessed. He was making a brave attempt at seeming light-hearted but he was holding her hand so tightly that Sally knew how anxious he really was.

‘No, but I have put
both
our hot bricks in your bed – instead of one in yours and one in my own, if that’s all right with you?’

‘Sally,
Sally
… oh, my love, you are my love now, and I will never, ever let you go.’

‘Quick, Sam, catch.’

Automatically Sam made a dive to catch the deliberately low-flung rolled-up scarf that May had thrown her, as they climbed out of their transport at the barracks. The other girls laughed and applauded her skill, then laughed even more when Sam made a grab for May’s gloves and started to juggle skilfully with the scarf and the gloves.

‘Stow it, Sam,’ Hazel warned her firmly. ‘Top brass heading this way.’

With a swift flick of her wrist Sam sent the scarf and then the gloves flying in May’s direction, and she struggled ineffectually to catch them.

‘You’re such fun, Sam,’ May told her, still laughing as she came over to her. ‘By the way, have you heard that Lynsey’s asked for a transfer? Seems she’s serious about that Yank she’s going with, and since he’s being posted down south she wants to move as near to him as she can.’

Sam nodded but didn’t say anything.

Every day, or so it seemed to her, it got harder
for her to hide her unhappiness behind the mask of the joking tomboy she had always found it so easy to be. She was still that Sam, but now there was another Sam living inside her as well, and that Sam ached for her lost love.

She didn’t know how on earth she was going to cope with seeing Johnny day in and day out, knowing that they were over, she really didn’t. Just thinking about it blurred her vision with misery.

‘Morning, Grey.’

‘Morning, sir,’ Sam returned the major’s greeting along with a smart salute. No matter what her feelings might be it would never do to let the side down and show them.

His brisk, ‘Got some meetings at Derby House today,’ left her feeling slightly sick with relief at being spared the ordeal of having to see Johnny, if only for one day.

‘And who did you see when we were out shopping, Tommy?’ Sally asked as she picked him up and sat him on the kitchen drainer so that she could remove his Wellington boots.

‘Favver Christmas,’ Tommy told her triumphantly.

‘Issmass,’ Harry echoed with a beaming smile that made Sally laugh.

She had had ever such a nice time in town showing the children the decorations that the shops were putting up, after morning surgery had finished. Some of them were looking a bit war-worn now, but the kiddies didn’t see that and the
look on their little faces had been a treat to see. It had been a shame that Alex couldn’t have been with them, but they had both decided that until they were ready to go public with their relationship it made sense not to go about together as though they were already a family.

As she had said to Alex, though, last night in bed, cuddled up to his warmth, what they did in private behind closed doors was no one’s business but their own. Not that they wouldn’t have to be a bit careful. Tommy was that age when he didn’t miss a trick. Mind you, Sally admitted to herself, with her feeling that happy that she couldn’t stop smiling there’d be others asking a few questions if she wasn’t careful.

She put Tommy down on the floor to play with his brother. Alex was out doing his rounds, and with the rain lashing down like it had been he’d want something hot to warm him when he came in.

She was just turning the gas down under the vegetable soup she was making when she heard someone knocking on the front door.

‘You stay here. It will be a patient wanting to see Dr Alex,’ she instructed Tommy as she went to answer it, wiping her hands on her apron and then taking it off. She and Alex had decided that for now that’s how the boys should refer to him.

‘A sick person?’ Tommy asked.

‘Yes,’ Sally agreed, opening the door into the hall and then closing it firmly behind her before going to open the front door.

It had been raining all day, a sharp wind icing the rain. A man was standing on the doorstep with his back to her when Sally opened the door, huddled into his raincoat, his hat pulled down and his coat collar turned up to protect him from the weather.

He swung round to face her, malicious pleasure in his small mean eyes as he said, triumphantly, ‘Thought I wouldn’t track you down here, did you?’

Sid! The Boss’s debt collector!

Sally reacted instinctively, immediately backing into the hallway and trying to close the door, but he was too quick for her.

‘A little birdie told me you were here. The Boss isn’t very happy with you. It gets her goat when her customers try to cheat her.’

‘I’m not trying to cheat her,’ Sally denied. ‘You told me yourself that she said I could have a bit of a holiday from paying her if I wanted to.’

‘Bit of an ’
oliday
mebbe, but you took off and disappeared wi’out giving us a forwarding address. Just as well I’ve got some good friends to give me a tip-off as to where you was.’

The confidence that came from having Alex’s love gave Sally the courage to say determinedly, ‘Well, you can tell her that by my reckoning I’ve paid her what I owe her three times over and more.’

She could see that her answer hadn’t been what he was expecting and her hopes rose that he was going to leave, but instead he moved closer to her
and snarled threateningly, ‘Your reckoning won’t hold water with the Boss, I can tell you that much. Does her own figuring, she does, and she reckons that you still owe her plenty. Mind you, she said to tell you that she’s prepared to act generous towards you like on account of you losing your hubby.’

He was leering at her now, and remembering how he had behaved towards her before, Sally could feel horror and revulsion crawling through her stomach. She wasn’t going to let him see how she felt, though, not for one minute.

‘The doctor will have something to say if he comes back and finds you hanging around, you not being one of his patients.’

There, that should make him take himself off, Sally decided. But to her shock instead of reacting as she had expected the debt collector’s leer deepened.

‘Funny you should mention him.’

‘Why should it be? This is his house, after all,’ Sally reminded him sharply.

‘And you’re working for him as his housekeeper and that, so the Boss has heard.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Sally’s heart was thumping far too heavily for comfort now, as she sensed that somehow a trap had been sprung but not able to work out exactly what that trap was.

‘That’s why she’s told me to come round and have a word wi’ you, on account of you and her being able to do a bit of business together, wi’ you working for the doctor.’

‘A bit of business?’

‘That’s right. It’s like this, see. Sometimes the Boss gets a bit of a business going wi’ them she’s teken a liking to. Helps them and her as well. There’s allus a demand for things like bandages, and bits of medicine, towels, sheets, the kind of thing that doctors, and them wot works for them, can come by, wi’ folk willing to pay good prices and not ask too many questions, if you know what I mean. Wot she said to tell you was that if you play ball with her then she’ll forget about what’s still owing. I’ll come round with a list of the stuff she’s wanting. A good-looking woman like you working for a single chap shouldn’t have too much trouble getting him to sign his name to a few extra bits and pieces from the hospital and no one the wiser as to who’s getting them. Then I’ll come round and tek them off your hands and Bob’s your uncle.’

He made it all sound so reasonable and above board, but of course it wasn’t. Just the opposite, in fact.

‘You want me to steal medical and hospital supplies from the doctor so that they can be sold on the black market?’ Sally challenged him flatly.

His expression changed from leering satisfaction to irritation.

‘If you want to put it like that, that’s up to you,’ he told her sharply. ‘For meself I just say that it’s a matter of you scratch the Boss’s back and she’ll scratch yours. There’s no harm done, after all. You can’t tell me that you haven’t already
helped yourself to a little bit of extra stuff here and there, and no one the wiser. I wouldn’t blame you neither wi’ them two little ’uns to feed and clothe.’

‘No, I haven’t. I wouldn’t,’ Sally denied. ‘And as for me stealing hospital supplies for you,’ she shook her head angrily, ‘those things you’re talking about are needed for … for sick people, and for all I know for our fighting men. So you can go back to
the
Boss and tell her that if it’s a thief she’s looking for then she’s got the wrong person.’

‘Oh, no, love,’ the debt collector told her softly. ‘The Boss don’t make mistakes like that. She’s got the right person all right, you just haven’t realised that yet. You see, Sally – you don’t mind if I call you that, I hope, only you and me are going to be a lot closer once we get this little bit of business up and running – well, like I was saying, Sally, the Boss don’t make mistakes and when she offers a person a bit of business, then they’d better be ready to say yes,’ cos if they don’t …’

‘I’m not going to listen to any more of this.’

‘That’s a pity,’ cos I was going to warn you that if you don’t act sensible and do as the Boss wants, then you’re going to find yourself in a real nasty mess. You see, Sally, the thing is that the Boss has her little ways and she don’t like being crossed. So if you was to think of going running to this doctor, for instance, or the police, then I ought ter warn you that you’d find yourself coming in to find a bit of a fire having bin started, by accident
on purpose, like, whilst you was out … or someone might take it into their heads to start writing letters to folk about you and the doctor, if you know what I mean, and then there’s them two kiddies of yours …’

He didn’t need to say any more. Sally had already grasped the nature of the threats he was making. She clung to the door, her face robbed of its colour and her heart thudding heavily.

‘Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ the debt collector was telling her in a falsely kind voice. ‘I’ll give you a couple of days to think about it, and when I come back with the Boss’s list of what she reckons she wants that you can get for her, I’m sure you’ll realise what it is you have to do.’

With another leering smile he stepped back onto the steps and then turned to walk down them, along the path and out through the gate into the street, whilst all the time Sally stood clinging to the still-open door, unable to move.

He had gone. All that remained of his presence were the muddy shoe marks on the linoleum. Sick and shaking, Sally finally managed to close the front door. Why,
why
, had this had to happen, just when she had thought that she could allow herself to feel safe and happy?

What a fool she had been. That dreadful woman, the Boss, would never let her go; she would never be free of the hold she had on her. And it wasn’t just her and the boys the black marketeer could hurt. There was Alex to think about now, a respectable, decent hard-working man, a doctor
whose reputation could all too easily be ruined through his love for her.

Sally could just imagine how the old woman would gloat if she ever got to know about how she and Alex felt about one another and how she would try to use that to drag them both into the corrupt web she had spun around herself. How many other innocent people had she forced to steal to supply her with the black market goods she and her sons sold? Sally shuddered to think.

Well, she wasn’t going to join their number, not for anything.

But if she didn’t, the debt collector and those he worked for would make good those threats he had taunted her with, Sally knew. This was the underbelly of life for the poor. Sally had witnessed it growing up in Manchester as a child, although her family had never been involved with it, and now here it was again, threatening to reach out and drag her down into the dark underworld it thrived on.

Panic filled her as she realised how well they had got her trapped. She could not risk them making good their threats against her children, but she couldn’t tell Alex either. She knew him so well now. His first action would be to protect her and the boys, and without thinking about himself.

The Boss was a slippery and evil person. Sally wouldn’t put it past her to have plenty of strings to pull that could tighten on Alex and drag him down; whispered talk of things going missing from the hospital passed on along with Alex’s name,
even when no such thing had happened; other whispers about their relationship, false accusations and claims, things that meant nothing in a court of law but which in the court of human life, to which they were all subject, could mean a very great deal indeed. It wouldn’t take long for a man’s reputation to be left ruined once that kind of talk got going.

Sally walked blindly back through the hall, sick with fear for her sons, for the man she loved and for herself.

What on earth was she going to do?