Letters to the Lost (35 page)

‘I know it’ll be difficult for him, but I hope he’ll see that we have a right to try to be happy, especially after all these years of struggling and hardship. Surely that’s what God would want?’

Viciously Nancy squashed the end of her cigarette into the ashtray and ground it down. ‘I don’t think it’s that simple with God. After all, he’s a man, ain’t he?’

Double summertime had ended and the days seemed to shorten rapidly. In the garden everything was ready at once, making the challenge of feeding Reverend Stokes slightly easier but providing endless amounts of tedious work; picking, peeling, slicing, sterilizing jars and eking out sugar for jam. Another season of apples swelled and sweetened, and Stella made apple sauce in preparation for Blossom’s impending demise.

She wrote to Dan and told him how she could no longer bear to go round with scraps from the kitchen and watch her snuffling through them, rooting out the choicest bits with surprising delicacy, oblivious to the fate that was soon to befall her. It seemed like a betrayal. It also gave Stella a sense of superstitious unease: what if God was looking down and watching her going about her daily chores, similarly oblivious that disaster was about to strike?

No matter how hard she tried to shake it off, a sense of doom stalked her through those late September days. Even receiving a letter from Dan – while wonderful – offered small comfort because she knew that it would have been written three or four days earlier, and was well aware how much could change in that time. The censor ensured she only read half of what he wrote to her about operations, but combined with what she picked up from the nine o’clock news on the wireless it was enough to know that a major air offensive was underway.

Leave passes were like hen’s teeth. Since those enchanted first days in the house they had never had another night there, although twice they managed to snatch a handful of hours together when he’d been on stand down and had hitched a ride on a supply truck. He’d been able to give her no notice, and she had no idea if or when such a meeting might be possible again, which only added to her unsettled feeling. Each day was a round of hope and dread, waiting and disappointment.

To make matters worse, the last time they had met at the house they’d come close to arguing. She had already been there when he arrived and he had walked straight into her arms as she opened the door. Wordlessly they had gone upstairs and made love with silent intensity, until tears slid from her eyes and into her hair.

Afterwards they lit a fire in the grate downstairs and sat in front of it, drinking the whisky he’d brought with him as the sweet autumn afternoon cooled into evening outside. The raw feeling she’d had for weeks was back, as if she’d lost a layer of skin which had left her emotions too close to the surface. She’d reached for him again, wanting to wrap herself around him and feel the strength of him inside her. Reluctantly he’d pulled away, murmuring into her hair, ‘I haven’t got another rubber.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘I do.’ Sighing, he sat up and raked a hand through his hair. Muscles moved beneath the skin of his bare back – he’d lost weight since he’d been in hospital, and the realization made her want to hold on to him even more. ‘I care about you too much to land you with a baby.’

‘I
want
a baby.’

‘So do I. But not now, not like this. I want to raise our kids in a safe world. One where we can be together all the time, not just in furtive moments that feel like they’re stolen from someone else.’

‘But what if you don’t survive to see that perfect world?’ The words sprang like malevolent toads from the dark swamp of despair inside her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, dripping onto her raised knees as she hugged herself on the floor. ‘Dan, what if you don’t come back? Couldn’t you at least let me have a part of you to live for?’

‘Sweetheart, you would have.’ He knelt in front of her, his expression terribly sad. ‘
You’re
a part of me, and if that happens, if I don’t come back, I’d want you to live for yourself. I’d want you to have choices and the freedom to make them; to leave Charles, if that was what you wanted, and come here and be safe. It would be hard, but a whole lot harder if you had a baby.’

She knew he was right, but that only made it worse. Later, before he left, she had apologized for her childish, unreasonable behaviour and he had kissed her gently, sweetly; utterly forgiving. But she couldn’t quite forgive herself for spoiling their precious time together. It played on her mind and added to the sense of dread. What if that was the last time she saw him?

All of this was going round in her mind as she stood at the sink washing Reverend Stokes’s breakfast dishes one morning. She had run out of soap and the water was greyish and greasy, with bits of powdered egg floating like primitive life forms in it. A sulphurous whiff rose from it, like bad drains. Her throat constricted with nausea.

There was a knock on the back door. The effort of going to open it seemed too great, so she shouted, ‘Come in!’

Ada appeared, her old tweed coat thrown over her kitchen pinny, her head swathed in a scarf. She bustled over to the table, carrying a wicker basket and the clean, cold smell of autumn.

‘Morning love. Thought I’d bring you the first pickings.’ She lifted a bloody newspaper bundle from the basket and dropped it proudly on the table. Stella looked at it in horror.

‘What is it?’

Laughing, Ada folded back the red-edged pages to reveal a glistening mound of crimson flesh and nest of greyish snakes. ‘A good bit of liver, some loin, some chitterlings, bacon of course—’

Blossom.

The iron tang of blood filled Stella’s nostrils. She clamped a hand over her mouth and nose to block it out, and, cannoning off the table and the wall just about made it to the lavatory beside the scullery before she was violently sick.

*

‘Better?’

Ada watched her with a mixture of sympathy and concern as she sipped her tea. Blossom’s mortal remains had been wrapped up again and removed from sight, though Stella could still smell the metallic reek of flesh. Since when had her nose been so sensitive?

‘A bit, thanks.’ She took another dutiful sip. In all honesty she would have preferred water, but it would have been ungrateful to say that when Ada had been kind enough to make a pot of tea. Wearily she acknowledged that it would also be ungrateful, and ungracious, to say that she was still feeling wretched and would rather be left alone. Ada had taken off her coat and hung it on the hook on the back door, and seemed to be prepared to stay until she was sure Stella was all right. Pinned by her sharp gaze, Stella dredged up a smile. ‘It’s the change of seasons. Always a bad time for illness.’

‘Felt like this for a while, have you?’

‘A week or so, although I haven’t been sick before. I thought I was fighting it off, but obviously not. I’ve been so tired . . .’

Ada gave a soft little chuckle. ‘Poor lamb. You’re in the club, ain’t you?’

For a moment Stella was nonplussed. She thought of the bloodstained newspaper parcel and its gruesome contents. The pig club. She was in the pig club, that’s why Ada had come round.

‘What I mean is . . .’ Ada’s voice gentled. ‘Could you have started a baby?’

Stella’s jaw dropped. Thoughts chased each other like leaves in a gale across her mind. A baby? But Dan had been so careful . . . so determined. Could fate have intervened, just like it had when it had brought them both to the church, and taken him to the house?
Some great plan that was written in the stars . . .

‘A baby?’

Tentative joy glowed inside her, like the first traces of pink dawn on the night horizon. He couldn’t mind now it had happened, could he? A baby. Dan’s child. She could almost hear its laughter echoing through the little house on Greenfields Lane.

Ada chuckled affectionately. ‘Don’t sound so shocked, love. It happens. And my guess is that you must be about two and a bit months on, which is exactly how long it is since Reverend Thorne was home on ’is Embarkation Leave.’

Oh God . . .

Charles.

Her cheek grinding against the fireplace and grit in her mouth. Slime between her thighs.
Indecent acts.

The pink glow died and there was nothing but darkness.

The bell sounded for the end of visiting time, jolting Will back into the present. Looking up, he was surprised to find that while he’d been reading the letters it had gone completely dark. The windows were squares of black; shiny like tar, sealing off the world outside.

He stretched and rubbed a hand through his hair and looked down at the letter in his hand. Reading quickly – a skill he’d perfected at university – he’d almost caught up with Jess. He could understand how she’d become so involved in the lives of Dan Rosinski and Stella Thorne. Even without being able to read Stella’s side of the correspondence their story had leapt from the brittle pages and dragged him in.

He replaced the letter in its envelope. Up and down the ward people were standing up, stacking plastic chairs they’d brought in from the day room, rustling plastic bags as items to leave and items to take home were exchanged. Only Jess was still, curled up on the bed with her back to him, her knees tucked up. He wondered if she was asleep. Through the narrow gap between the ties of the hospital gown he could see the pale ridge of her spine, as delicate as an ammonite. He averted his eyes, and was just wondering whether to slip quietly away when she stirred and turned towards him.

Her eyes were swimming with tears, shimmering like pebbles in a clear stream. Uncurling herself she held out the letter she’d been reading.

‘Look.’

He took it from her.
Dear Stella,
he read,
This is one of those letters I hope you don’t ever read, the one I’m going to leave on my bunk to be posted by the CQ if I don’t come back . . .

‘He must have got shot down,’ Jess said softly. ‘I guess she thought he was dead. She gave up on him.’

27

1943–44

The high-up windowsills of St Crispin’s were decked with swags of ivy and fronds culled from an overgrown conifer hedge at the back of the village hall field. There were a few sprigs of holly too. Candlelight made its glossy leaves shine, and showed up the few berries, gleaming in jewelled clusters against all the green.

You couldn’t beat candles at Christmas. Ada glanced up at the windows where, at four o’clock, the light was already beginning to fade from the day. If old Stokes didn’t get a move on they’d have that fusspot Jim Potter slapping a fine on him for breach of blackout regulations. She glanced across to where Jim was sitting with his wife. The fact that it was Christmas Eve and he was in his best suit rather than his ARP uniform wouldn’t hold him back from doing his official duty.

At last Reverend Stokes announced the final hymn and they all roused themselves to sing
O Come All Ye Faithful
. It was one of Ada’s favourites, though it was hard to imagine all the nations arising joyfully together at the end of yet another year spent bashing each other to pieces. Really, it seemed never-ending, and harder to bear or comprehend at Christmas. All the suffering. All the loss. She sent up another swift and silent prayer of thanks that her Harry was safe at home, sleeping off the effects of a thirty-six-hour journey to get there. There were many as weren’t so lucky. Reverend Stokes had read out a list of names of those from the parish who wouldn’t be spending the festive season at home. It was no wonder the service had gone on so blooming long.

Ada’s gaze came to rest on the solitary figure in the front pew and her hearty singing faltered a little. The poor mite. From the back you couldn’t tell at all that she was expecting; she was thinner than ever. Too thin, in Ada’s view. The mound of the baby seemed stuck on, like it was nothing to do with the rest of her body. She’d been sick as a dog at first, of course, but she should have got over that by now and be blooming, as much as anyone could bloom in this endless winter of an endless war. But she wasn’t. Her hair had lost the lustre it had had in the summer, and her eyes had lost their shine. You’d think instead of looking forward to a birth she was mourning a death.

The organ swelled as Marjorie Walsh thundered triumphantly through the last verse.
Born that man no more may die,
Ada sang wistfully. Babies always brought hope. Maybe Stella would pick up once the little one was actually in her arms. In the meantime, Ada resolved to keep a close eye on her, make sure she was eating properly and not letting that old goat Stokes take all her rations.

As the congregation filtered out of their pews, moving slowly towards the door and the frosty twilight beyond, she abandoned Alf and caught up with Marjorie and her husband. Dr Walsh had taken the half hunter from his waistcoat pocket and was looking at it, saying, ‘If we hurry we might just catch the end of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on the wireless.’

‘We’ve just had carols,’ Marjorie hissed.

‘Hardly the same standard.’

Marjorie was about to reply when she noticed Ada and was forced to present a polite smile. ‘Lovely service, I thought. Very festive with the candles, though we ought to blow them out quickly now as it’s getting so dark. And such a nice letter from Reverend Thorne, though even he sounds like he’s struggling to hold on to hope and stay cheerful.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Ada looked past Marjorie to where Stella was collecting hymn books. Smiling was obviously an effort and made the tendons stand out in her neck. ‘Mrs Thorne’s shockingly thin – there’s not an ounce of flesh on her bones. It’s not right in her condition. Is there anything you can give her, Doctor?’

Dr Walsh tucked the watch back into his pocket and rocked back on his heels. ‘Some women just don’t take well to childbearing. It’s a question of temperament, and I’m afraid there’s little we in the medical profession can do about that.’

Pompous old so-and-so. Ada almost wished she hadn’t asked. ‘Oh well, I daresay she’ll pick up when she’s got a little one to nurse.’

‘Perhaps.’ Dr Walsh smiled with patronizing gravity. ‘Though I’m afraid I’d have to say that, in my experience, that’s when the problems can really start.’