Letters to the Lost (37 page)

‘You all right? Not going to throw up are you?’

Stella shook her head and smiled weakly. She felt more faint than sick. The whole trip had an air of unreality, like it was part of the nightmare. She hadn’t thought ahead to what she might find at the hospital, but as the bus juddered its way along bomb-scarred streets she forced herself to confront it. Charles; wounded, changed. His injury had been the result of a car accident, the medical officer had said in his letter. A mountain road, an icy night; no one’s fault. The jeep had been open-sided, which accounted for the injury to Charles’s arm. ‘He was lucky,’ the letter had said. ‘It could very easily have been his neck that was broken.’

She wondered if they’d told him she was coming and couldn’t imagine that the prospect of seeing her would bring him any comfort whatsoever. The two of them were nothing more than apathetic actors on a flimsy film set, like the ones in Charlie Chaplin pictures where the house folded inwards at the slightest touch. She was his wife, but she already knew to her cost that she was the last person he would open up to in a time of difficulty or distress.

The hospital was vast and palatial, a Victorian extravaganza in red brick and creamy white stone. Dan would have loved it, Stella thought with a thud of misery as she struggled down from the bus. Nancy straightened her skirt as they approached. ‘Blimey. Makes you feel like you’re going to tea with the King.’

Inside the corridors were as wide as Mile End Road, with tall windows facing out onto the landscaped grounds and the sea beyond. Patients in hospital blues moved slowly along them, some of them with a sleeve or a trouser-leg pinned up. Stella’s skin felt clammy with sweat. A harassed-looking orderly directed them towards the Surgical division. Nancy walked with her, trying not to show impatience at her slow pace, until they were outside the double doors to Charles’s ward.

‘This is as far as I go, angel,’ Nancy said. ‘Pecker up – you’ll be fine on your own from here. I’ll make myself comfortable on that bench there and have a ciggy, so you take as long as you like.’ She suddenly looked worried. ‘You are allowed to smoke in here, aren’t you?’

Stella was ten years old again, being sent to Miss Birch’s special Latin lessons, while Nancy was heading to Domestic Science. The walk down to the nurses’ desk seemed endless, the stern-faced sister in the starched apron and nun-like veil seated behind it impossibly intimidating without Nancy’s bolstering presence. In the short time she’d known him Dan had given her independence, confidence, but they seemed to have vanished along with him.
Oh Dan – help me . . .

The nurse’s expression softened when Stella told her who she was, and her pale, protruding eyes flicked down to her abdomen. She got up and came round the desk.

‘Mrs Thorne. The medical officer has told you about his injury? Try not to be shocked when you see him – or at least don’t let him see it, please. His arm is healing well, but we’re keeping him under sedation for the time being. He’s been rather . . . agitated – upset, if you like – when the medication has worn off. It’s understandable, given this kind of injury.’

‘His arm is healing? But I thought—?’

‘It’s been removed, yes, above the elbow, but there’s a bit of the upper arm remaining, which is good news for the future. Here we are, dear. Fourth bed down on the right.’

It was Charles, but not Charles. He was asleep, and against the fat white pillow his face was yellowish, his lips scabbed and crusted. Stella sat in the hard chair at his bedside and looked at him, because there was nothing else to look at without intruding on the privacy of neighbouring patients and their visitors. His hair had thinned, and the bones of his skull gleamed beneath the stretched skin on his temples. His truncated arm lay outside the blankets, swathed in bandages. It reminded her of the swaddled baby Jesus in the picture that hung on the wall in the room they used for Sunday School at St Crispin’s.

In sleep his face twitched irritably. The mummified stump of his arm rose and dropped back onto the blankets. And then his features convulsed and his mouth stretched into a silent howl of anguish. He made a peculiar choking sound as tears oozed from beneath his closed eyelids.

‘Charles—’ She heaved herself from the chair and went to him, reaching across to take the hand that plucked at the sheets on his other side. ‘Charles, it’s me – Stella. It’s all right, you’re safe in hospital, in England.’

He opened his eyes and stared at her glassily. His pupils were tiny pinpricks in the cold blue. He blinked and struggled to raise himself, as though embarrassed to have been caught in a moment of weakness and determined to gloss over it.

‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ he muttered.

‘It’s fine – don’t try to sit up, just lie still. I came as soon as I found out where you were. I’m so sorry, Charles. You’ve been through such a horrible ordeal, but at least you’re on home ground now. And the nurse says you’re doing very well and getting better . . .’

She trailed off as the banal stream of words ran out. Her mouth was dry. She swallowed with difficulty. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘No. I feel . . . numb.’

‘That’s good.’ Was it?

‘Some water, please.’

His eyes went to the jug on the cabinet. She moved around the bed to pour it and, turning to give it to him, caught the look on his face as he glanced at her swollen stomach. He’s more shocked at my altered body than I am at his, she thought sadly. She went to hold the glass to his lips but he twisted his head away angrily.

‘I can do it.’ With difficulty he raised himself up and took the glass from her with his good hand.

‘Would you like some tea? Perhaps if I ask—’

‘They’re nurses, not Nippies in a Lyons Teahouse. They have better things to do than run up and down with trays of tea.’

Stella subsided onto the chair again, at a loss. The suggestion of tea had been as much for her benefit as his and would have at least provided a diversion. Charles was lying back on the pillows now, staring resolutely ahead, his jaw set. She sifted through the contents of her head to find something suitable to say, and was just about to resort to making some remark about the frustrations of the journey when she noticed that his chin was quivering and tears had begun to seep from his eyes again.

‘Oh Charles . . .’ Her heart contracted with pity. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket – reasonably clean – and very gently blotted them away. He flinched but said nothing. Encouraged, she pulled her chair a little closer, and said softly, ‘Does Peter know that you’ve been injured? Would you like me to write to him and tell him where you are?’

His eyes closed and lines of profound suffering etched themselves onto his face.

‘You can’t.’ He spoke from between gritted teeth. ‘Peter is dead. Monte Cassino, in January.’

And then she understood, and suddenly the senseless accident didn’t seem so senseless or accidental any more. For a moment he lay rigid and motionless, struggling with the invisible demons of grief that Stella knew so well herself. Then he opened his eyes and gave her a frozen smile. ‘Thank you for coming, it was good of you. But please don’t feel you have to make the journey again.’

He came home on a bitterly cold day in March.

From the moment a date for his discharge from hospital had been tentatively settled, the St Crispin’s ladies swung into action, preparing a welcome for their wounded warrior. Reverend Stokes had never been very popular in King’s Oak and his leaving passed with barely a murmur, such was the focus on Charles’s return. Another banner was made, using the same striped flannelette sheet as for Charles and Stella’s wedding. On the reverse side of it Alf Broughton painted, at Ada’s instruction,
WELCOME HOME
, and beneath it in smaller letters,
King’s Oak is Proud of You.
Rations were pooled for a small buffet tea in the church hall and a rolling menu of nourishing soups, stews and milk puddings (or their wartime equivalent, made from recipes in Marjorie’s magazine) was planned to boost his recovery in the coming weeks. Distantly, through the deadening layers of scabbed grief, Stella was grateful, but anxious. This was a different Charles from the bookish, boyish vicar they’d all enjoyed spoiling in his bachelor days. She hoped their feelings wouldn’t be hurt if he failed to respond to their kindness with appropriate gratitude.

But in the end she worried for nothing. Three weeks in a convalescent home just outside Newbury had not only restored some of the colour to his cheeks, but a little of his old charm. She watched him as he sat in the hall, surrounded by a little crowd of ladies vying for the honour of bringing him sandwiches and the inevitable scones. He played his part well, accepting their attention with good humour, even joking that the empty sleeve of his jacket was merely a ruse to secure such royal treatment. It broke the ice and made it all right for them to stop pretending they hadn’t noticed it.

He’s much more at ease with them, Stella thought bleakly. It’s just me he can’t bear to look at or talk to. On the banner hanging above the stage she could make out the mirror image of the words ‘The Happy Couple’ through the thin fabric, behind the message of welcome. Dear God. It seemed almost laughable now, if it wasn’t so bloody hopeless. She pressed her fingers into the small of her back and rubbed at the ache there as, without warning, she thought of the sunlit bedroom with the violet-strewn walls. Grief reared up and kicked her hard beneath the ribs so she had to bend and lean on the table for support.

‘You all right, love?’ Was there nothing Ada didn’t notice? ‘Got a pain? Baby’s getting ready, that means. Won’t be long now, you mark my words. Reverend—’ Before Stella could stop her Ada was bustling over to him, nudging Marjorie and Dot and Ethel out of the way, puffed up with the importance of her mission. ‘I’m quite sure you’ve had enough listening to us old birds. You’ve got a girl that needs to put her feet up here, bless her, and I reckon you two have got some catching up to do. You take her home now.’

Stella looked at Charles, hoping to transmit a silent apology and disassociate herself from the hatching of this plan, but he was too busy thanking everyone and saying goodbye to notice. Dutifully he slid his good arm through hers as they went to the door. She could feel the stiffness in his body, and understood the effort it was costing him to put on this front.

We have more in common than he realizes, she thought as they crossed the road to the Vicarage, the wind slicing through the gap between them. Two lost souls with their hearts broken and their other halves torn away.

The Vicarage was as cold and damp as a tomb. Muttering awkwardly, Charles retreated to his study and Stella went into the kitchen to prepare supper. It wasn’t strictly necessary as there was a corned beef hash in the larder made by Ethel Collins, but she didn’t know what else to do to fill the hour until suppertime, or the days and weeks and years that stretched ahead of her. Leaning against the scullery wall where Dan had kissed her she buried her face in a tea towel to stop herself screaming. The only way it will be bearable is if we can be honest with each other, she thought desperately. If we can share our pain, maybe we can find some way of going forward with it and making some kind of life together. Not the life we thought we’d have when we married, not the life either of us wanted in our hearts, but
something
. For the baby.

In her head she began to piece together what she would say to him over supper, putting out of her mind what had happened last time she’d tried to talk to him honestly. Because what could he do to her now? The worst had already happened. He could kill her, she supposed, and the idea was curious but not frightening.

In the end, what happened was completely unexpected. Just as she was taking the corned beef hash from the oven he appeared in the kitchen carrying a bottle of champagne.

‘Part of the case my father bought for our wedding,’ he said sheepishly. ‘It’s rather a disgrace that we’ve left it unopened for so long. Do you think you could do the honours? I’m afraid it’s one of the many things I’m discovering for which two hands are a minimum requirement.’

Taking it from him she smelled the sweet-sharp tang of alcohol on his breath. He’d obviously worked out how to open the whisky bottle. She tore off the foil, trying to beat back the memory of watching Dan do the same thing in the hotel room in Cambridge. It was impossible. She could see the muscled ridges of his bare stomach as clearly as if she was looking at a photograph.

Wrestling the cork out was much more difficult than Dan had made it look and a flume of froth cascaded over her hand. Charles brought in a pair of champagne coupes, dusty with lack of use, rattling together as he clutched them awkwardly in his unsteady hand.

‘I thought we should drink to the future. To the baby,’ he said with forced heartiness, raising his glass and looking at her with a sort of determined fondness. ‘I know things have been far from easy for you. I know that not many men are as lucky as I am in having a wife who’s as understanding as you’ve been and I want to put the past behind us and make a new start.’ His eyes crinkled as he attempted a smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to inflict myself on you like this,’ he lifted his arm so that the empty sleeve of his jacket twitched. ‘I thought it would be best if I moved into the small room at the end of the landing.’

Stella nodded, speechless with surprise and numb with misery. He drained his glass in one mouthful, and poured another, and she understood that the toast to the baby was incidental. His main purpose was simply to drink.

Later, after they’d eaten in stilted silence and she’d washed the dishes she went up to make up the bed. It was the room Peter Underwood had used when he’d stayed at the Vicarage. She didn’t blame Charles for wanting to have it now.

Her body was so cumbersome it was a major undertaking to manhandle the sheets and blankets into place and tuck them neatly under the mattress. Charles came in just as she finished and was sitting on the edge of the bed, red-faced and damp-haired. He was carrying his pyjamas.

‘Forgive me, darling, I’m rather tired. Would you mind if I turned in early?’