The Songbird and the Soldier (19 page)

“I’m fine, Mum. It’s been a long term, that’s all.”

“I don’t know love. Are you sure there’s nothing else? You look to me like you’ve lost weight.”

“Maybe a little.”

“You’ve got to find time to eat, love. Promise me you’ll take better care of yourself. You’re not still pining after that soldier of yours, are you?”

Sam was taken aback. She had not told her mother about writing to Andy.

Her mother seemed to sense this. “I met Kate the other day when she was visiting her mum. Isn’t that baby adorable?”

“Yes, she’s gorgeous.” Sam would have words with Kate the next time she saw her.

Mrs Litton waited for Sam to speak. “Well?”

“Not any more, Mum. I did, for a long time, but I’ve accepted now that he’s not going to forgive me.”

Mrs Litton looked at her daughter with her heart aching. “One day he’s going to realise what a mistake he’s made, Sam. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I think so. I will be.” Humphrey hopped up on the couch next to Sam and nuzzled in beside her and for once, Mrs Litton did not object.

“You spoil that dog,” she said, affectionately.

“I know.” Sam hugged Humphrey to her.

“Do you see much of Kate now she’s up at the barracks?” her mum asked.

“A bit. I brought some photos with me, in case you hadn’t seen her.”

“Where are they?” her mum asked. “I’ll fetch them.”

Sam described where to find the pictures and her mother brought them back down and passed them over. The bundle included the picture of Sam and Ellen that Spike had taken on Kate’s phone and they’d printed out for her.

That evening Sam and her mum sat together on the couch and watched an old episode of Morse while her dad read in the armchair nearby. Sam didn’t make it to the end before she drifted off to sleep and when it was over, her dad helped her up to bed, kissed her on the forehead and tucked her in, with Humphrey cuddled up close by.

It was the following Thursday before Sam won the battle to return home. Her mother had seen how exhausted she was and insisted she stay to let her get some rest, but with the new term looming, Sam needed a bit of time to prepare. She did promise, though, that she would try to eat and rest when she needed to and with those conditions firmly understood, her dad drove them back home.

A few weeks later, Chloe rang around to try and organise a night out singing for Sam’s birthday. Sam hadn’t sung for ages and their girly nights out had seemed long gone, but she agreed and with a new sense of excitement, she began to practise a song to sing on the night. Kate was eager to go out too, having not been on a night out since Ellen was born. A few nights before, Kate was feeling awake and strong and she resolved to try to bring Andy round. What better birthday present could she get for Sam than Andy? She asked Spike to watch Ellen. Spike did his best to try and talk her out of going round to Andy’s, telling her to leave the poor chap alone, but Kate was not going to be easily dissuaded. She was determined to make Andy see reason, and if physically shaking him was what was necessary to make him see sense then that was what she was going to do.

Andy sat in his living room sipping a glass of red wine and reading his book. The doorbell went and he checked his watch. Eight thirty. He got up and answered the door and found Kate for once without the baby. “Hi, Kate. Everything all right?” He was concerned. Visits out of the blue without a smile were never good news. “Is the baby okay?”

“She’s fine. Spike’s got her.”

“Do you want to come in?”

“Could I?” Kate walked inside and looked around. She had not been inside Andy’s house before. For the most part it was like all the others, but in his, there were few of the comforts of home the rest of them could boast: photos, pictures, cushions and knickknacks. Andy’s house was bare and functional. There were seats to sit in and curtains to close, but the personal touches, the things that make the house a home were missing.

Andy followed her inside. “What’s up then, Kate? It must be important to drag you out at this time of night.”

“It’s Sam.”

Andy’s frame tensed. He clenched his teeth and took a calming breath. “What is it with you women? Why can’t you just let things be? It’s over.” He made a move toward her, intending to herd her rapidly back out of the front door.

Kate held up her hands to stop him. “Look, Andy, I’m not going to give you the hard sell, I know Tina’s already tried that. I just wanted to give you a chance, if you wanted one. I thought that if you knew Sam was going to be at the Crown this Thursday night for the karaoke, then you might just happen to be there. It’s her birthday.”

Andy straightened and looked at her with a guarded expression. The pain told him his armour still had a chink in it and he would give anything to find out how to close that gap.

“I thought you might like this. It’s a photo of Ellen.” She put the photo down on his coffee table.

Immediately Andy leaned down and noticed it was Ellen being held by Sam. He handed it back. “No thank you. I don’t need any photos of her. I remember quite well what she looked like.”

Kate looked at him for a long moment. “Well, I’ve told you now. That’s all I came to do.” She smiled briefly and then walked back out toward the front door. Andy walked after her. Kate opened the door and without looking back she said, “We’ll be there around nine, if you change your mind.” Then she left the photo beside the front door and walked out.

Andy closed the door behind her and leaned his forehead against it. He looked across at the photo despite himself, and standing up straight he held it up and looked at it. Big chestnut eyes full of love smiled back at him and the pain soared again. Sam was holding baby Ellen against her shoulder; her fingers gently cradling the baby’s head as her smiling lips rested delicately against her. She appeared to be tenderness personified. And then he saw it. The bracelet he had given her all those months ago, when he had thought her the best thing in the universe, was once again lying against the soft, pale skin of her delicate wrist. He was transfixed. He stared at her, aching for the woman he had once loved. He leaned back against the hallway wall and thumped his head backwards hard. His forehead crinkled as his eyes begged to look away, but there was nothing else around his house half so compelling.

The months of torment threatened to sweep back over him, pulling him down, but with a deep breath he found the strength to pull away. Quickly he hid the photo up on the top of the bookcase, where it found its home, concealed within the pile of her letters already lying there. Then he straightened his clothing, pulled back his shoulders and returned to his book in search of the sanctuary he sorely needed.

When Thursday evening came, Sam was more than a little tempted to cancel. She was weary from the day and had little energy left to spend the evening out singing, much as she had missed it. But she got herself ready and called a cab, and before she had time to change her mind she was outside the pub on a warm spring evening.

Kate was inside already, excited to be out on her own for a change and she squealed with delight and ran over when Sam walked in. She hugged her and then spun around and pointed out all the decorations. “What do you think?”

Sam looked around the room. In the corners of the room were bundles of balloons and streamers strung out across the room either side of a large banner. It read ‘Happy Birthday’. “It’s fantastic, Kate. Did you do all this?”

“I had a little help.” Kate nodded over at the staff behind the bar and then turned back and reached out to the table nearby and picked up her present. She thrust it at Sam. “Happy birthday, hon’. I hope you like it.”

Sam took the present and smiled. She unwrapped it carefully. Out of the sparkly purple paper slipped a hard-backed book. Sam turned it over and read the covers. Then she flicked to the front and searched down the list of contents.

“It’s not much, I’m afraid. You know how things are. Baby stuff is so expensive. You wouldn’t believe it.”

Sam looked up and beamed at her. There was another book too. The first was a volume of poetry and the other was about birds. She turned them over in her hands and looked up. “Christina Rossetti,” she said. “Thank you, they’re perfect. I can’t believe you remembered.” She hugged her best friend again.

“Right. Let’s get this party going. What are you drinking?”

Sam walked over to the table and took off her coat.

“Wow, you’ve lost weight, you skinny minnie. You’ll have to tell me how you do that.”

“Oh don’t you start.”

“What? What did I say?”

Sam heaved a big sigh and sat down. “I’m copping it from my mum about not taking care of myself. The teachers at work are convinced I’ve gone anorexic.” She was getting more and more stressed.

Kate held up her hands. “All right. I’m sorry.” An awkward moment passed when Kate didn’t know what to say. “You’re not, are you?”

“No!”

Kate went to get some drinks. When she got back, Chloe and Jake, Chloe’s new boyfriend, were there and a few other friends that had come to celebrate Sam’s birthday were with them. Together they made a rowdy lot in the corner of the room.

From out of nowhere, Chloe produced a cake and a great cheer went up. She put it down in pride of place at the centre of the table and smiled at Sam. It had been made in the shape of a huge microphone, with one end covered in chocolate sprinkles and the other a slim black string of icing, trailing away like a wire. On the top was a single, rather large, silver candle. Kate borrowed a lighter from a woman at the next table and lit the candle in the middle. Suddenly a large plume of sparks shot up and everybody cheered and sang Happy Birthday to her. Sam gazed in delight as her friends enjoyed themselves and when it had burned out, a chant of ‘cake, cake, cake,’ started up, Sam asked the barman for a knife and the cake was duly cut and dished out among her friends.

Soon the room began to fill and the night really got started. As they settled in, Kate turned to Sam and told her she had put her name down for nine o’clock, but didn’t know what song she wanted to sing. Sam made a little sigh. “I guess it’ll have to be-”

“Dido?” Kate finished.

Sam smiled. “Who else? ‘My Life’, I think.”

“Okay, I’ll let him know. Back in a minute.”

As nine o’clock approached Kate became increasingly distracted. She checked across at the door every couple of minutes, hoping to see if her efforts were going to pay off, and then Sam got up to sing and a ripple of applause went up. Kate checked back at the door. Nothing. Then, just as she was about to turn back, he appeared. Quickly, Kate looked over at Sam, but she was already up at the microphone and had started singing.

Andy watched as this fragile woman began to sing. Her beautiful voice called out to him across the space between them but his feet were rooted to the ground. All the emotion he had hidden away for so long flooded back through him and his chest heaved with the effort of drawing breath. Was he really risking undoing all the good work he’d done, just to see her again? She was singing Dido, of course. Who else? She sang to him of being herself and living life her way, and his stomach clenched. Had she known he was going to be there? He steadied himself on his crutch.

As she finished, the room erupted and Sam smiled shyly. Yes, he could do this. He would walk right over and tell her how beautifully she had sung and she would smile up at him with those loving brown eyes of hers and he would know, know if it was right. But then she returned to her table and a guy stood up and put his arms round her and kissed her and sat back down with his arm still hovering around her. Andy cursed. What had he been thinking? Of course she had moved on. That was obviously why he hadn’t received a letter from her in a couple of weeks. He caught Kate’s eye and scowled. He was a bloody fool. He glanced briefly back toward Sam and stormed out as fast as his aching leg would carry him.

Kate got up and rushed to the door, suddenly aware of how it must have looked. Trailing out in his wake, she searched around the front bar, but he was already gone.

Sam, tired out after her performance, sat back in her chair and did her best to catch her breath. She began to hiccough. Her friends found this very entertaining, but Chloe was concerned. “Are you feeling all right, Sam? You’ve gone awfully pale.” Several of her friends offered to get Sam another drink, to drive away the hiccoughs, but all Sam really wanted to do was go to the toilet, and so she pushed them off and stood up. Suddenly, she collapsed. Her body crumpled to the ground with a sickening thud.

A few moments later, Sam came round and was confronted with a sea of faces looking down at her. They swam before her, the noise tangling around her senses like cobwebs. Somebody called for the music to stop and she heard Kate shouting for someone to call an ambulance.

Sam began to get up. “No. I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t need one.” Kate knelt down beside her and helped her up to a nearby seat. “See? Just a bit of a headache, that’s all.” She gently touched the side of her head where she had landed.

Kate was not convinced, but it was enough to satisfy the rest of the crowd and soon the singing continued as before. Then, just as a song came to a quiet part, Chloe said, “You’re not pregnant, are you?” a little too loudly, and half the room turned and stared.

“I think you have to have sex for that,” she said, and a titter spread around the neighbouring tables.

Chloe was mortified and mouthed over ‘sorry’.

“I still think you need to see a doctor,” Kate said. “You haven’t been right for weeks.”

Sam nodded, “I will. I’ll ring them in the morning, I promise.” She had had her head in the sand for too long now. She was well aware that something was not right, but deep down she feared it was something very bad and the thought of finding out frightened her more than not knowing. She looked at Kate. “But I think for now I’d better get myself home to bed.”

“Absolutely not. I’m ringing your mum and dad. You’re not going home on your own after a do like that.”

“No, don’t. You know what they’re like. Mum’ll only worry and fuss and Dad will get all edgy. I just want to go to bed. Please, Kate.”

Kate looked at her for a moment and then agreed to ring Spike to arrange for him to pick them both up and stay with Sam for a bit, to make sure she was all right. Everybody agreed it was for the best to get Sam home, and wrapping up the last of the birthday cake, they wished her better soon and Kate and Sam went on their way.

Kate wasn’t happy leaving Sam on her own that night, but Sam insisted they leave, and Kate’s maternal instinct urged her to see her baby girl safely back in her cot. Sam said she would ring if she felt ill again and would call the doctors in the morning to get an appointment.

The following morning, Sam was still not right. Kate rang her and insisted that if she was determined to go into work, then she should at least take a cab to school. Sam rang the surgery in morning break and got an appointment for the following week. The day ticked by in ever slowing minutes. Finally it was the weekend and she was free to catch up with her sleep.

When Sam failed to show up for lunch on Sunday, her mum began to get very concerned. She tried the phone, but there was no answer on her land line and her mobile went straight to answerphone, so in the end, with the dinner smothered in foil on the dining room table, she got in the car and drove around to Sam’s house.

As she approached the house, she felt a surge of terror rise up inside her. She knocked on the front door. There was no reply. She knocked harder, but still no answer came. Fumbling inside her bag, Mrs Litton found the spare keys and opened the door. She called out. Sam’s things were there. Her coat hung up beside the door and her keys and purse were on the table in the hallway. She rapidly searched around and then hurried upstairs.

At the bedroom door she knocked and paused. “Sam?” she called out, and then with no reply, she crept inside. In that moment all else paled around her and her stomach wrenched. Lying there on the bed was her beautiful daughter. She rushed over and tried to rouse her. Sam stirred a little, but would not wake. Her lips were cracked and her eyes sunken. Mrs Litton reached for her phone and with trembling hands managed to type in the three digits.

When the ambulance was on its way, Mrs Litton rang her husband. She could barely speak for the trembling in her voice. But theirs had been a long and happy marriage and little needed to be actually said. She arranged to meet him at the hospital and then she waited, unable to move from her daughter’s side until the siren blared outside the house and a knock battered hard on the front door and she was obliged to let go of her hand and step away.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Sam came round in a hospital bed. She looked around her. Her left hand was connected to a drip and to her right sat her mother, her head nodding awkwardly to one side in a high-backed chair. She looked some more and saw her father slumped in an armchair against the wall. It was dark in there, but Sam could see well enough. Somewhere beyond her vision she could hear a single set of footsteps, walking quietly around. Sam stirred her aching body and her mother was immediately alert. She tried to speak, but the effort was too much. Heavy sheets weighed her body down. Only her hands had enough energy left to speak. Sam squeezed her mother’s hand and tried to smile. She tried to speak again and her mother leapt up and was by her side with a small plastic beaker of water. Sam took a couple of sips and rested back, exhausted. How had she got there? She could not remember.