Forgive and Forget (45 page)

His gaze still on the pictures, Stevie put his arm about her shoulders. Softly, he said, ‘There’s one missing, isn’t there, Poll, but I expect you can’t put that one up, can you?’

Polly gasped and stared up at him. He was taller than she was now. He rested his cheek against her hair and sighed heavily. ‘Oh, Poll, how I wish things could have been different for you.’

She touched his cheek with gentle fingers. ‘Just – just take care of yourself. That’s all I ask.’

And so now there were four photographs of men in uniform arranged along Polly’s mantelpiece, but the missing face was the one that filled her thoughts the most.

There was still no news of Leo and though Polly dared not be seen visiting Bertha too often, the two women now met whenever they could. Sometimes Bertha would contrive to be passing the school gate – even though she had no excuse to be meeting a child – when she thought Polly would be leaving for home. With Michael walking between them, no one could guess that there was more between them than two former neighbours chatting.

‘Any word?’ Polly would whisper, but her heart would sink as Bertha shook her head yet again.

‘You’d think we’d hear summat, wouldn’t you? But there’s been nothing since that telegram. “
Missing, presumed killed.
” You’d’ve thought they’d have had the decency at least to let us know when he actually went missing. I don’t even know where he was. It could’ve been anywhere in France for all I know.’

‘He was with the Seventh Battalion, wasn’t he? Part of Kitchener’s army. Like Roland. And – and Stevie joined the same battalion later.’

Bertha eyed her shrewdly. ‘Is he out there an’ all now? Little Stevie?’

Polly smiled wistfully. Everyone still called him ‘little Stevie’, remembering the bright-eyed, laughing boy. She nodded, her voice husky as she murmured, ‘Yes, he came home on leave just before they – they were going. He said he’d keep an eye out for Roland and Micky.’

‘Funny they’ve never been home on leave, Polly. Several of the fellows I know of – even those abroad – do get home, though I have to admit ’t ain’t often.’

Haltingly, Polly explained. ‘Roland said in one of his letters that he didn’t want to come home. He was afraid that, if he did, he wouldn’t go back.’

Bertha turned to her in surprise. ‘He actually put that? In a letter?’

Polly nodded.

‘Well, I’m amazed it got past the censor. They read all their letters, you know? And ours to them.’

Polly giggled. ‘I bet some of them between sweethearts and wives and husbands make interesting reading.’

Bertha chuckled too. ‘I can imagine. Poor devils – it’s all they’ve got to cling on to.’ She paused and then asked, ‘What about Micky? Hasn’t he had a chance to come home?’

Now Polly laughed aloud. ‘Oh, who knows with Micky Fowler?’

Bertha joined in the laughter but then her expression sobered. ‘Perhaps it’d’ve been better for your Vi if he had come home once in a while.’

Polly shot her a look. So, Bertha had heard the rumours too.

‘Still,’ the older woman continued, ‘mebbe it’ll soon be over now the Yanks have come in.’

There had been great hopes that when the might of the United States arrived the war would soon be over, but it dragged on into another year.

‘Nineteen eighteen,’ Polly moaned as they attempted to celebrate another New Year. ‘It’ll soon have been going four years come August. Whenever is it going to end?’

Stevie wrote regularly and often, trying to allay his family’s fears. Roland wrote spasmodically now and Polly wondered at the change. When he’d first been sent abroad the letters had arrived frequently. Micky – as might be expected – only managed a pre-printed postcard every so often. Violet still went out in the evenings, but now she was careful never to give anyone cause to spread gossip about her. Polly was surprised; she’d thought her rebellious sister wouldn’t have cared. Whether Violet was wary of her father or of her father-in-law – perhaps both – Polly didn’t know, but she hoped it was because Vi genuinely didn’t want to hurt Micky. Whatever the reason, Polly began to relax a little where Violet was concerned.

‘I’ll keep me eye on her, duck,’ Nelly promised when she visited Polly on a Sunday. ‘Don’t be too hard on her. She’s young and it’s difficult for the lasses with their menfolk away.’

So Polly tried to immerse herself in the life of the school. Surrounded by the children, whose resilience to all the bad news they must be aware of even at their tender ages she admired, she fought to put her own worries to the back of her mind.

But even at school the war kept intruding. The teachers were always alert to any sign of distress in the children, realizing at once when bad news had arrived at their home. One morning in June Polly came to school to find Nancy sitting at the teacher’s desk in her classroom with swollen eyes and a stricken look on her face.

‘Oh, Nancy, what is it?’ Polly put her arm around Nancy’s shoulders.

Hoarsely, the young woman whispered, ‘It’s Bob.’

Polly was mystified. ‘Bob? Who’s Bob?’

‘A – a soldier I – I know. I’d been writing to him. He lived up-hill. With his parents.’ The explanation was halting and painful. ‘He was with the Second Battalion. He’d joined the army before the war. You know, like your brother.’

Perhaps not for the same reason, Polly thought, but she said nothing.

‘I’ve known him for years. I met him when I was at the college, but just recently it’d – it’d become – more.’

‘Has he been killed?’

Nancy nodded. ‘His parents had a telegram yesterday. His father came round to tell us last night. Oh, Polly, he’s their only son – their only child. They’re heartbroken.’

Polly hugged her tightly and then said, ‘You should go home – just for today,’ she added swiftly as Nancy began to protest. ‘I’ll go and find Miss Broughton.’

So, before the children could see their teacher, Polly sought permission for Nancy to go home and, for the rest of the day, she took charge of the class with one or two visits from the head teacher to see that she was coping.

But Polly was in her element. This was what she wanted to do with her life, but she knew she must not get too hopeful; when the war was over things might change. If Roland came home – and she prayed that he would – she would have to go back to being a housewife and mother. But for the moment, she would enjoy the brief freedom to follow her dreams.

During the August school holidays Polly took the opportunity to clean her house from top to bottom. Jacob, now four, helped her, sweeping and dusting and shaking the rugs. He was more of a hindrance, but Polly enjoyed the time with him and felt a flash of guilt that perhaps she had put her own ambitions before the needs of her son. But he was a merry little boy, happy, it seemed, with either his mother or Selina.

And it was good for him, Polly told herself, to have a man’s presence in his life. Albie Thorpe was a stand-in for the father whom Jacob could not remember.

One hot evening Polly had put her son to bed, had bathed and washed her hair and was drying it in front of the fire in the range that always burned, winter and summer, when a soft knock sounded at the front door.

When Polly opened it, she felt as if she’d been dealt a blow in her midriff that had knocked the breath out of her. She stood and stared at the man standing there. He was tall, but now he stooped a little, leaning heavily on a stick. His face was gaunt and his eyes haunted, with the same expression she’d seen in the soldiers walking the city streets – soldiers who’d survived the trenches but whose lives had been scarred forever by the horrors they had witnessed and the wounds they bore. He was still in his uniform, his jacket hanging loosely on his thin frame.

They stared at each other for what seemed like an age until at last she whispered his name, like the answer to a prayer. ‘Leo. Oh, Leo.’

His lips moved but no sound came out. He just stood there, staring at her, drinking in the sight of her like a thirsting man in the desert who comes to an oasis.

Polly gathered her scattered wits. ‘What am I thinking? Come in, come in.’

Leo found his voice at last. ‘No, no, I’ll not intrude.’

Gently, she said, ‘You’re not intruding. There’s no one here but me and Jacob. And he’s in bed.’

At the mention of her son’s name, Leo’s expression softened a little and some of the horror left his eyes.

They sat on either side of the table and looked at each other again. Tentatively, Leo stretched out his hand, palm upwards and, without a second’s hesitation, Polly put hers into his warm, strong grasp.

‘Now I’m really home and safe,’ he whispered hoarsely.

‘Oh, Leo, Leo,’ she murmured. It was all she could say. Her heart was overflowing with gratitude that, though he was obviously wounded, his life had been spared. They sat in silence for a long time. Words were not needed; at least, not at the moment. There was so much to say, so much that had to be said, but not just now. Not in the moment when he’d come back from hell – when he’d come back to her.

‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked at last. ‘Why have we heard nothing from you or even about you?’

He shook his head and sighed. ‘I don’t really know myself what happened. When I was wounded – I think we were being shelled, but I can’t remember clearly – I was taken to a first aid post then to a field hospital. At least, that’s what I’ve been told since, but I was out cold. For a while they thought I was dead.’ He smiled wryly. ‘In fact, one of the orderlies in the field hospital told me that they’d put me with the dead and it was only because a sharp-eyed orderly heard me groan that I was found.’

‘Oh, Leo!’

‘Anyway,’ Leo went on, trying to make light of it, ‘when I eventually came to my senses, I was being transported to a hospital back at the coast. By this time all my belongings had gone and I’d no identification on me.’

‘What? Stolen, you mean?’

‘No, no,’ Leo sought to reassure her hastily. ‘At least, I don’t think so. I think everything had been lost when – when we were blown up.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, my head was injured.’ He touched his right temple just above the faint scar that he still bore from the injury her father had inflicted upon him. ‘And – for a while – I couldn’t remember a thing. Not even my name. So, for several weeks, months actually, no one knew who I was – including me.’

‘But it’s been two
years
, Leo.’

‘As soon as I got my memory back, I wrote home, but it seems Mam never got my letters. I’ve been writing ever since of course, even though I’ve been back at the Front.’

‘The Front?’ Polly’s voice was a high-pitched squeak of indignation. ‘They sent you back to the Front? But your leg? How could you fight with an injured leg.’

‘I didn’t – I mean, that injury wasn’t caused then. This is just recently. At Amiens. By the way, I saw Stevie briefly.’

‘Oh, Leo, is he all right. Is he in danger?’

‘Polly, darling, I can’t lie to you. Of course, he’s in danger, but he was fine when I saw him. And he’s in very good spirits. In fact, his sergeant told me that Stevie’s the one who keeps everyone’s spirits up, even though he’s so young.’

‘He shouldn’t be there. He was only eighteen in April just gone. He shouldn’t even be out there yet.’

‘I know, I know.’

She gazed at him, still hardly able to believe he was actually sitting in front of her, safe if not completely sound.

‘And this injury?’

Now he smiled broadly. ‘This is a Blighty wound. I’ll be taking no more part in the war, Poll.’

‘Thank God,’ she breathed and lifted his hand to her lips to kiss it gently.

‘Poll – is it too late for us?’

They’d been sitting together for hours as the darkness closed in around them. It was late now, but Leo made no attempt to leave.

She stared at him. ‘What – what d’you mean?’

His grasp tightened on her hand. ‘I want us to be together.’

‘But – but I can’t. There’s Roland. I – I can’t
leave
him, Leo.’

‘Yes, you can. It’s happened to a lot of the fellers I was with. They got letters from home telling them their wives or sweethearts had found someone else.’

‘And you’re asking me to do that to Roland?’ she whispered hoarsely.

‘One thing I’ve learnt out of this lot,’ he said grimly, ‘is to grab your happiness wherever and whenever you can. Life’s too short, Poll.’

She gazed at him, seeing a different side, a new side to the man she’d always loved and still did. But this war had changed him; he was harder, more selfish and seemed to have totally abandoned his own principle of always trying to do what was right.

She held his hand between hers. ‘Roland is a good, kind man. I couldn’t do that to him, Leo.’

‘But you don’t love him. You never have,’ he said harshly. ‘You love me.’

‘I – I can’t deny that,’ she said sadly. ‘And worse still, I think Roland has always known that too. I
do
love him, but in a very different way from the way I love you.’

Now he reached out with his other hand too and gripped both of hers in a surprisingly strong hold considering his weakened state. ‘Then just let me love you, Poll. Let me make love to you. Roland need never know. No one will ever know. Poll, I need you so desperately. I need your arms around me. I need to know I’m alive.’