Call Nurse Jenny (27 page)

Mrs Ward was looking down at her. How could she be expected to understand? ‘If the pain gets any worse, you will
have
to go to hospital.’

This left Susan gritting her teeth against the dull ache for fear of the threat being carried out. Bidden by the doctor to lie as still as possible in bed for the next week, she did all that was asked of her, determined no one would get her anywhere near the gates of any hospital.

Mrs Ward wrote to Susan’s parents. They came hurrying down from Birmingham; the content of Mrs Ward’s letter had frightened them. They found Susan looking much better than they had thought, with the pain almost gone, but she was still confined to bed – just in case, said the doctor.

As soon as Susan saw them, she burst into tears and, when Mrs Ward prudently retired from the room, she threw her arms around her mother to be cuddled and crooned over in privacy. She hadn’t realised until then how much she had missed her mother.

‘Mum, oh, Mum – take me home. I hate it here.’

Her mother let go of her slightly to gaze around the pretty pink bedroom. ‘Whatever for, love? This is really lovely. Matthew’s parents look after you so well, better’n like I ever could in our crowded house.’

‘Don’t talk of Matthew,’ Susan pleaded tearfully. ‘The telegram said he’s missing, but it’s only another way of telling us he’s bin killed.’

‘Don’t say things like that, Sue.’ Her mother leaned back to look up at her husband, seeking help from him, to which he responded in his usual way, merely repeating what had already been said as though that cemented it all perfectly.

‘No, don’t say things like that, Sue.’

‘You’ve got to ’ave faith, love. He’ll come back, right as rain, you’ll see. When this war’s all over, love, you and him, you’ll both pick up like where you left off, and you’ll ’ave a little baby then to look after, like. So you got to be strong and look after yourself, for Matthew and for his baby’s sake.’

‘I could do, at home,’ Susan whimpered as her mother gently broke free of her arms, almost as though she were glad to be released of them. ‘If I was home, Mum, with you to look after me, everything’d be all right. I hate it here. With Matthew gone, I don’t feel I’ve got any business here.’

‘Sue, love, he ain’t gone. He’s alive somewhere, waiting to be found by the Army. You make it sound as if you think he’ll never come back. And look, love, we couldn’t have you home with us. You know there’s no room. There was hardly no room when you was single, much less when you’ve got a baby with you. And honestly, our Sue, look what you’ve got here. No, love, I do think you’re better off staying here with Mr and Mrs Ward. They really are nice people and you’re being so well looked after.’

So that was that. Abandoned by her own family. Over the next couple of weeks, she rested, slowly recovering, the baby still firmly entrenched inside her. There had been moments when she would have put her hands together if she had lost the baby. Growing more convinced that Matthew must have been killed, lying unfound somewhere in the jungle with creepers and undergrowth hiding his body and (the mere thought made her weep until her eyes appeared permanently red and swollen) the horrid creeping things slowly devouring it, a baby would only be a painful reminder of the love and happiness they’d once shared. She couldn’t give her love to a baby when her love for Matthew was of no use to anyone any more. Then, as she recovered, she wasn’t so much glad as relieved that she hadn’t lost the baby after all. It hadn’t grown so much that she was yet attached to it in her mind, but if Matthew had really been killed and was at this moment actually looking down on her, he’d never forgive her for such thoughts about it as she’d had.

If only she’d been asked to go home, it might all be so different. But now she was being pampered all the more by Mrs Ward, who was nothing to her, this in-law business thrust on her, yet was assuming the role of loving mother. She could see no escape. At home she might for the time being go out and enjoy herself, still go off to dances, perhaps dance with some of the young servicemen, Yanks, Canadian, the Free French, the Polish and the British boys, and still be admired for a while. Here, she was trapped, expected to play the wife when there was no one to play wife to.

To escape the sensation of being smothered and continually watched over, she would spend hours in her room reading the limp, buff-coloured magazines that wartime austerity forbade shiny covers. Sometimes she read increasingly tatty books from the library, love books mostly – easy-to-follow love stories with handsome heroes and violet-eyed heroines. They’d bring back a flood of memories, desolate now, of when she and Matthew had made love, had been in love. She’d pretend he was still making love to her, but it brought such wishing that she tried not to imagine it too much. Then she’d throw the book down and weep with loneliness, stifling her sobs in her pillow in case Mrs Ward came hurrying in to see what was the matter. As if the woman couldn’t see why she was crying.

Halfway through April, when her stomach was really beginning to show and not much chance of going out anywhere presented itself, there was no one to talk to. With Matthew’s sister serving as a Wren in Southampton even Louise’s company was denied her. She’d have felt even more trapped if it hadn’t been for Jenny Ross popping in now and again. She’d become a good friend and confidante.

For Jenny, an hour or two with Susan on those evenings when she wasn’t with her friends from the London could be a change from sitting with her mother who seemed to want to lean on her more and more. She often wondered how Mumsy would have coped had she married Ronald.

It had been strange not seeing his face about the hospital. She had found herself looking for him, missing him, but as anyone would miss a face no longer there, she told herself. One didn’t have to love the person in order to feel keenly that empty place his going had left. She busied herself and put him from her mind.

As promised, he had written to her, a friendly letter, a little formal perhaps, wondering if she had thought any more about the things he’d last spoken of. He phrased the question itself slightly obliquely – no mention at all about the ring, which she still had tucked away in a box. She had replied, sounding just as friendly, just as formal, skirting the question. She had not meant it to be such a short letter, but there wasn’t much to say. Time had gone on too long for that. She had wanted so much to say she’d changed her mind but when it came down to it, couldn’t.

As time went on the wish had diminished, the dilemma’s sharp edges had blunted somewhat. His departure had left a hole, but had she truly loved him, surely it would have left a much larger hole that would have taken a lot more to fill. And that impulsive statement she had made at the time about joining the QAs, then just a silly idea to get out of a spot, began to take more shape. The more she thought about it, the more attractive it was becoming. She’d be given a chance to travel overseas, to see the world, to meet new people, to expand her life. Mumsy wouldn’t be too pleased but she had to get out of the rut that Ronald had accused her of being in. The QAs had such smart uniforms too, grey and scarlet with ties and snappy-brimmed hats, unlike the drab dress of ordinary nurses. She’d be tending fighting men instead of, now the Blitz was over, ordinary civilian ills and ailments. But first she had to pass her remaining exams. Prepared to work hard, she’d thrown herself into her work and looked very like passing her exams with flying colours come summer. All that would remain then would be to sit her finals that would turn her into an SRN. Then it would be off into the QAs in earnest.

She sat now talking to Susan in the living room. Mrs Ward was out at one of her many women’s meetings, Mr Ward in the lounge listening to the evening news on the wireless and reading his evening paper.

‘The Red Cross hasn’t come up with anything at all,’ Susan was saying, sitting back in a fireside chair nursing the growing bulge over her stomach. She looked particularly down this evening. ‘His parents have made lots of enquiries, but he’s never been traced. They can only guess he might be a prisoner of war but the Japanese aren’t giving out any lists.’

‘But they should,’ Jenny said, aghast. She had felt the news of Matthew, or lack of it, as keenly as anyone, and in private had shed tears. ‘The Geneva Convention says all sides must declare lists of prisoners.’

‘The Japanese apparently think they’re exempt because they never signed anything, or whatever. So no one knows if Matthew’s been captured or gone missing or been … you know.’ Tears flooded the deep blue eyes.

‘You mustn’t give up hope,’ Jenny said in an effort to console.

‘What’s the point?’ Susan got up and began pacing the room, going to fiddle with the heavy curtains that concealed the blackout material, drawn now with the gathering dusk outside. Jenny watched her.

‘If he’s been taken prisoner, that has to be better news than it might have been.’ Meant to give comfort, it only came out clumsy and tactless. She tried to amend it. ‘You’ve just got to hang on to hope.’

Susan swung round, almost viciously. ‘Hope! It’s all right for you to talk. You didn’t love him like I did, so how do you know what it’s like not knowing what’s happened to him?’

To combat the pain that retort invoked, Jenny got up and came to stand beside her. When she spoke her voice sounded flat even to her. ‘Can you be that sure no one knows how you feel?’

Susan gave a sullen shrug. ‘All I know is that if he’s a prisoner of war, it’ll be years before he ever comes home again, not till the war’s over, and that could be God knows how long. And in the meantime, there’s me stuck here. If I go on living in this mausoleum much longer, I’ll go mad. I’ve got to get away from here before I get any bigger and can’t at all.’

Again came the feeling that Susan wasn’t thinking so much of Matthew, possibly in danger if indeed he hadn’t been killed, as of herself and the loneliness
she
felt. Everyone was lonely who had a loved one away fighting, not knowing if they’d be killed or captured, but they usually kept it to themselves. Susan was too outspoken for her own good. It made her look bad.

‘Where would you go if you left here?’ she asked.

‘Home. And as soon as I can. Trouble is, there’s no room at me mum and dad’s with our Robert and Les and our John there, and June and our Beryl. I’d rent a room somewhere nearby, but at least I’d be near my family. I’d have me mum near me. If only I wasn’t having this baby …’

She broke off, not in shame at what she’d said, but swamped by the injustice of it all; Jenny could hear it in her tone. The girl’s next words confirmed it.

‘Why did all this have to happen to me? It’s not fair! Landed with a baby, and Matthew God knows where.’

She began to pace around the room again while Jenny followed her with her eyes, the sympathy she had initially felt for the girl draining away.

‘Haven’t you stopped to think how dreadfully unfair it must be to Matthew?’ She couldn’t control the anger in her voice. ‘Wherever he is, he can’t be having much of a time either.’

She refused to think him dead. It was unthinkable. One day he would come home and take up his life again. That was all she ever wanted, to see him come home and be happy. The wish for that caught her like a pain. But not as great a pain as being compelled to keep her feelings for Matthew to herself when all she wanted was to sing them from the rooftops.

A day didn’t go by that she didn’t pray for his safe return. The notion of never seeing him again tore her to pieces. It was bad enough to know that if and when he did come home he and Susan could go off into the blue, that she would never see them again. But at least he would be in this world, somewhere. Far worse to know that he was gone from this world entirely. How dare this girl, his wife who professed to love him so dearly, take the news of his being missing as though she alone suffered –
her
loneliness,
her
grief,
her
plight, not his plight, not the worry and grief of his family, but hers.

Beneath the anger that welled up in Jenny was a dull ache for Matthew which she was sure would stay with her the rest of her life if he never came home again. And here was Susan thinking of him only in terms of herself.

‘Wherever he is?’ Susan’s voice had risen in near hysteria. ‘Wherever he is? Don’t you understand? He’s dead. Matthew’s dead! And here I am trying to be a wife, living with people that mean nothing to me.’

‘You’re carrying Matthew’s child. His parents’ grandchild. That’s what they should mean to you, Susan.’

‘Well, they don’t. Everyone keeps saying he’s been taken prisoner, but I
know
he’s dead, lying out there somewhere in that terrible jungle where no one can find him, his body being …’

‘Don’t talk like that!’ Susan had conjured up visions in her mind too awful to bear. ‘There had to be others with him. They’d have reported …’

‘I don’t care! All I know is he’s not here and I am, and I can’t take much more of this living with his parents. They’re not
my
family.’

‘They’re your baby’s family.’

‘I don’t care,’ she said again. ‘I don’t want this baby anyway, not now Matthew’s gone. All I want is to get away from here. I have to get away.’

She broke off in a flood of tears and threw herself back into the fireside chair, head twisted into one of its wings, her small body convulsed with weeping.

The door opened. Mrs Ward in hat and coat came hurrying into the room. ‘Susan! What is the matter? I could hear you shouting as I came in.’

Mr Ward had followed her in, also alerted by the cries. ‘What in God’s name is going on?’

‘Susan is upset,’ Jenny offered but neither of them looked at her.

Mrs Ward came forward and lifted the still-weeping girl from her huddled position in the chair. ‘This happens each time someone tries to offer sympathy,’ she said sharply, and Jenny might have taken umbrage had she not seen the girl’s reaction for herself and heard the things she had said.

‘Come on now, Susan,’ Mrs Ward was ordering as Jenny stood aside, unsure whether to stay or go, both of which seemed ill-mannered. ‘Pull yourself together now. We’re all worried and anxious, but it does no good to give way like this. We all have to be strong. We all have to believe he’ll be returned to us. You’re doing yourself and the baby no good. Matthew wouldn’t want that. I’m taking you up to your room and you can rest there.’