The Back of Beyond (29 page)

‘So you've spotted it, too? It's his colouring.'

‘His hair's a lovely colour.'

‘But it's his eyes, and all. I didn't think two browns could make green.'

‘I know you're in deadly earnest, but put it out of your mind.'

‘But it's not fair to let Dougal think …'

‘Rosie dear, please don't say anything. It will only cause trouble. Even if it's true, I'm sure Marge regrets it now, and Nicky's a permanent reminder. Don't you think her guilt will make her suffer enough without you making it worse for her?'

She heaved a shuddering sigh. ‘I know you mean well, Alf, but I can't overlook the fact that one of my daughters has committed adultery.'

He leaned towards her and took her hand. ‘Listen, my dear sweet Rosie, I know your conscience tells you she should be punished, but try to see beyond that. What is to be gained by denouncing her? You will also be punishing Dougal and her innocent young son, and the strife will rub off on every one of us. Dougal will blame Gwen as the older for not taking better care of his wife, and even Alistair might put some of the blame on her. Leila and David are both old enough to sense if something's wrong. You would be opening Pandora's box, Rosie, stirring a hornets' nest, splitting up your family.'

Her soft sniff made him murmur, ‘Don't upset yourself so, my dear. You may be worrying for nothing. I think I read somewhere that red hair can be passed down from some generations back, and that could be what's happened.'

Rosie let the matter drop. Perhaps what he had just said was true, perhaps it wasn't and he was trying to plug a hole in the dyke, but he was right to tell her to say nothing. In order to be sure of having her family happily around her, she would have to keep her suspicions to herself. It was just a good thing Tiny wasn't here to put his oar in. He'd have muddied the waters, all right.

Alistair was home first. His camp had been freed in April, but he had to undergo some medical and other tests in Germany before he was pronounced fit to travel to Britain, and more tests on this side, so it was into December before he reached Lee Green. There was great jubilation, of course, and after about three quarters of an hour, Alf, realizing that Gwen would want to be alone with her husband, swept Rosie and all the rest of her family into his house for the afternoon. Even David, complaining that he wanted to be with his Dad, was persuaded that his parents deserved some time on their own.

Gwen had been shocked at how painfully thin Alistair looked when he walked in, how his cheekbones stood out, how grey his skin, how white his hair, so it came as so surprise when he kissed her only a few times and then muttered, apologetically, ‘I'm sorry, my darling, but all I want to do now is sleep, sleep, sleep. In a decent bed with soft blankets and an eiderdown, with nothing at all to worry about.'

In a way, she was relieved, and when she went upstairs with him and watched him undress, her heart cramped at the sight of his skeletal body, she could have counted his ribs without touching him. There was no way she could ever willingly hurt him. She would have to make absolutely certain that nothing of what she had done ever leaked out, that he never learned that she was young Nicky's mother. It would tear him apart.

At six o'clock, when Marge came to say that Alf had prepared as good a feast as rations would allow, she had to explain that Alistair was sound asleep and she didn't want to disturb him. Marge, of course, teased her about tiring him out already.

‘No, there was nothing like that. He was almost dead on his feet, and all he wanted was to sleep. Tell Alf I'm sure Alistair will appreciate the effort he's made, but I'm afraid we'll have to pass on it. Say we'll have it tomorrow, if it'll keep.'

So Alistair's real homecoming took place the day after he came home, and even though he was still exhausted, he did his best to enter into the celebration that his in-laws seemed to be bent on having.

That night, once again he wanted only to sleep, and Gwen lay by his side, thanking God that he'd come home safely to her, and praying that his health would soon improve.

Chapter 22

Alistair had been withdrawn and uncommunicative ever since he came home six months earlier. Marge had told Gwen repeatedly that she shouldn't try to push him. ‘It must have been awful for him in that Stalag whatever, and he won't feel like speaking about it just yet. It'll take a while, but I'm sure he'll tell you all about it in his own good time.'

Gwen felt like saying that she didn't care if he never told her about the prisoner-of-war camp. He had been gone from her for so long that all she wanted was to be told how much he'd missed her, how much he loved her. Instead, he hardly spoke when they were alone together, which wasn't often, what with Marge, Peggy or their mother popping in whenever they felt like it, and Alistair himself going out every morning and sometimes not turning up again until just before the children were due home from school. What was more, he never told her where he had been or what he had been doing.

When he knew that Dougal was to be demobilized soon, however, and would be coming home, he seemed to ease fractionally out of his cocoon. ‘We're lucky,' he observed one evening as he sat at the fireside with his wife, her mother and Marge. ‘Dougal and me, I mean. I never dreamt … we'd both come through without a scratch. I thought about him all the time, you know, wondering what was happening to him.'

‘Me, too,' Marge smiled. ‘The silly devil could have been volunteering for all kinds of dangerous missions without a thought to his own safety, you know what he's like.'

Alistair nodded gravely. ‘Of course I know what he's like! Better than anybody! We were like brothers all our lives, we'd have done anything for each other. Like that other war song said, “Comrades, comrades, ever since we were boys,” but we didn't end up the same way. The last line went, “When danger threatened my darling old comrade was there by my side,” and we weren't there for each other, were we?'

‘Neither of you was to blame for that,' Rosie pointed out, ‘so just be glad you both survived.'

He lapsed into morose silence for about ten minutes, ignoring the conversation around him, and then mumbled, ‘I'm whacked. I'm off to bed.'

Rosie patted Gwen's shoulder when the door closed behind him. ‘Don't upset yourself, dear, it'll take him a long time to get over what he's been through.'

‘I know, Mum, but he said he'd only thought about Dougal when he was a prisoner, and he's never said he …' She halted, then ended, shakily, ‘He's never said he thought about me. He's never even said he missed me.' The tears she had pent up for months came out at last. ‘I sometimes … wonder … if I'm being … punished for …'

Marge jumped in before her sister revealed their dark secret. ‘… for going to Scotland and leaving him? It was his idea, remember? Then he lost Manny, a man he practically looked up to as a god, and he didn't have a job any longer. He was concerned for your safety, and the kids', but he'd have joined up even if you hadn't been away. You've nothing to reproach yourself for … about that,' she added.

As soon as Rosie went to bed, Marge turned angrily on Gwen. ‘What the devil were you thinking about? Do you want everybody to know?'

‘I'm sorry, it was when Alistair said he'd just thought about Dougal … He's been so distant to me since he came home, and … well, that got to me.'

‘Look, Gwennie,' Marge's voice was softer now, ‘you've got to make allowances for him. He's been through hell, things that he'll maybe never tell you about, and with nothing to take his mind off it, he can't help brooding. If he had a job …'

‘I wish I could tell him that, but I don't want him to think I'm criticizing.'

‘He's out every day, so maybe he
is
looking and can't find anything. Maybe that's why he's so down? There's so many men looking for jobs now. Dougal'll chivvy him on, though. Once
he's
home, Alistair'll soon get back to normal.'

Everyone, in all three houses, felt better once Dougal Finnie came home. His joy at holding the son he thought he would never have was ‘indescribable', as Rosie told one of her friends, and even Alistair joined in the celebration round the Pryors' large table the day after this homecoming.

‘I didn't fully realize how much Dougal wanted children,' he remarked to Gwen as they undressed for bed at the end of the convivial evening. ‘He must have been jealous seeing us with our two every time we came to visit.'

Thankful that her husband was discussing something with her at last, Gwen said, ‘I don't think Dougal's the jealous kind. He wouldn't be the slightest bit jealous even if somebody he knew won a fortune on the football pools.'

His eyes narrowed. ‘You think I would?'

‘I didn't say that!'

‘It's what you were thinking, though, wasn't it? You believe I'm jealous because he's got everything he wants now – a wife, a son, a house he owns, a job to go back to?'

She summoned a smile. ‘You've no reason to be jealous. You've got a wife who loves you, a son and daughter who love you, a good home, your health's improving …'

He puffed out his breath from pursed lips as he lay down beside her. ‘Yes, I've got all that, Gwen, and believe me, I count my blessings every night, but I just can't seem to get out of this … rut, I suppose you could call it. I want to be doing something, and I can't make up my mind what I want to do. What is there for me?'

‘Alistair, darling, have you forgotten that Manny taught you how to mend clocks and watches? And what about all the jewellery he left you? And the money?' She could mention that without fear, she reflected, because she had paid every last penny back that she had used at the time of … her trouble. ‘Maybe a pawnshop isn't what you want, but what about an antique shop, or a watchmaker and jeweller, something along that line.'

‘I can't summon up enthusiasm for anything,' he admitted.

‘Have a word with Dougal. He'll be able to point you in the right direction.' She wished she hadn't said it. It could be construed as meaning that she had every confidence in her brother-in-law and none in her husband, so she felt great relief when he merely nodded his agreement.

Meanwhile, in a bedroom only the width of two driveways away, Mr and Mrs Finnie were relaxing after a rather hectic half-hour of lovemaking. ‘I don't like seeing Ally as down as he is just now,' Dougal observed, as he flicked his cartridge-shell lighter.

‘He's been like that ever since he came home,' Marge answered.

‘I felt like shaking him, but Gwen was trying to shield him from any questions.'

‘She doesn't want him to think anybody's criticizing him.'

‘That's a bloody stupid way to look at things. He needs to get off his backside and look for work. I could maybe get him in with me …'

‘Don't suggest that, he'll just resent it. He needs to make up his own mind, or at least to
think
he's made up his own mind. Why don't you ask him out for a walk tomorrow? You might find out what's eating at him.'

Dougal took one last pull at his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray beside the bed. ‘Good idea, my precious, but why are we wasting time speaking about Alistair? We have years to make up yet. Show me again how much you missed me.'

‘So, how're you doing, me old mate?'

Alistair's smile was somewhat wry at his friend's attempt to cheer him. ‘I suppose Marge told you I've been vegetating since I came back?'

‘She didn't have to, I gathered it myself from odd things that were said, and the way Gwen and Rosie watch you like hawks in case you get upset about something. Look, if you'd like to tell me what's bothering you, I'm willing to listen for as long as you want. On the other hand, if you want me to shut up, I'll do my best, but you know me.'

They were strolling across Blackheath in the direction of the Greenwich Observatory, but neither of them paid any attention to the view below them, where the River Thames sparkled in the sunshine as it meandered towards the sea, nor to the old sailing boats which were moored to the quay. A few moments passed before Alistair muttered, ‘OK. We could have a seat on the grass, if you like.'

He smoked as he talked, lighting one cigarette after the other, and Dougal did the same while he listened, because he, too, had memories that he would never tell his wife. Thus, for the next two hours, Alistair spoke of being captured at Anzio on February 28, 1943, when the Germans made their big push. ‘Some of our boys had gone to HQ for rations, but the Company Commander and all the rest of us were captured, surrounded by the Herman Goering lot. They were on the run by that time, of course, with Monty and the Yanks both at their heels, and they made us carry their wounded out on stretchers, for about eight to ten days, I can't remember exactly.'

He stopped to light another full-strength Capstan. ‘We were under our own shell fire, of course. They ordered us to shove one of their trucks out of a ditch, and when we got it out, four of us climbed aboard it. We'd hoped we could escape along the way, but it went straight into German Headquarters. The driver got a right surprise when he found us in the back, and we were held in caves for … four, five days. We lost track of time.'

He went on to describe being taken in various modes of transport to Rome, where they were held in what had been a film studio, and then to Florence, until, at the end of May 1944, they were taken by rail in goods trucks into Germany itself, to Moosburg. ‘It was a huge camp, held 40,000, Russians, Yugoslavs, all different nationalities. We stopped in a siding, and the SS guards gave the political prisoners a helluva beating. Then they took us to Bavaria, right up in the hills, to build a factory for them. We didn't know at the time, of course, but it was intended for making V2s.'

He glanced at Dougal for a moment, trying to explain. ‘We'd to get the stone out of quarries and take out the foundations, no diggers, just barrows and spades and graips. The SS were running things, their secret police came up every now and then to see what was going on, but because we were always indulging in sabotage and trying to escape, that factory never started working.

‘Fifty of us were working there, but we were moved out in April 1945, back to Stalag 7A, and General Patton liberated us on the 29th. Came roaring into the camp! You never saw anything like it! Some day!' He relaxed with a huge smile, recalling the thrill of it.

While Alistair had been talking, Dougal mentally filled in the gaps in the story. He could imagine the treatment the prisoners had received, the British as roughly handled as the others, if not worse in some instances. ‘What about the food?' he asked.

‘It was pretty poor in Italy, that was the worst. There was no Red Cross stuff coming in at all and there were German cooks and Italian, so we never knew what we were going to get. Usually it was a slice of black bread in the morning and a cup of substitute coffee, ersatz, the Jerries called it. At dinnertime, they filled your steel helmet with some sauerkraut, that was the rations. Night time, coffee again, and a bit of bread and jam, put on and scraped off again. Sometimes you got a wee drop macaroni.'

He paused, the memories inching back to him now that he had opened the gate a little. ‘I was about a month there when I collapsed and they sent me to hospital. It was funny – the guardsmen who were there, big sturdy men, you know what they have to be, well, they didn't manage to stick it out as long as the rest of us. They caved in after two weeks, they must have needed more vitamins than we did. Once we were in Germany, though, we got our Red Cross parcels, which helped a good bit.'

‘Did
you
ever try to escape?'

Alistair rubbed his chin. ‘A few did try to get out of the film studios in Rome, but they were found and shot. Stalag 7A at Moosburg was considered 100% secure, but some prisoners tunnelled right under the wire, and the Jerries had got word of what they were up to, God knows how. They put Alsatians through from the camp side, and they waited at the other end till the men came out and shot the lot – seventeen of them. They hadn't a chance, Dougal, and I didn't want to end up dead meat, I'd my family to come home to, so like the coward I am, I never took one step out of line.'

‘There's nothing cowardly about wanting to stay alive,' Dougal said firmly. ‘I'd have been exactly the same.'

Alistair visibly perked up. ‘Would you? Honestly?'

‘Cross my heart and hope to die,' Dougal smiled, ‘and I don't consider myself a coward.' Deciding to take the step Marge had warned him against, he went on, ‘So what's your plans now?'

‘I haven't got my thoughts together long enough yet to make any plans. I'll have to start earning something soon, but I don't know how. I went round the markets without thinking when I came back first, then one of Manny's old contacts let me work on his stall and that's what I've been doing for the past few months. I haven't told Gwen, because …'

‘… because you're ashamed of being a barrow boy?' Dougal supplied. ‘But how have you been living? You can't be making much, and Gwen can't buy food and clothes for the kids if you don't …'

‘I told her I was drawing from the account I set up for her when she was in Forvit. She didn't use any of it, but …' He shook his head. ‘Oh God, Dougal, I should make a proper effort to get a job, shouldn't I?'

‘What kind of job do you fancy?'

‘Would you think I was off my head if I said I'd like to carry out Manny's dream and open a jeweller or an antiques shop?'

‘No, I'd say go for it! If you've got the money to start you off …'

‘The thing is … I'm not happy about living at Rosie's. I'd like a place of our own and that'll take every penny I have, including what I'd get if I sold all the stuff the bank's had in safekeeping.'