‘If you love someone, be sure to let them know while they are alive,’ Ella had said to her when Walter died. ‘Thank God I did, but I regret so much that it was the only time in all our years together that I did. I sometimes think the most painful part about losing someone is our inability to put the clock back and fill in the gaps.’
Now James had gone and she no longer had his leaves to look forward to. Pleasant anticipation was replaced by gnawing anxiety about his safety. If he never came back, she would be haunted forever by the things she had left unsaid. She was ashamed when she thought of her silence when she lay in his arms; she should have assured him that she would be there for him when he came back, and told him she loved him. The trouble was she hadn’t been sure – until he had gone and it was too late.
When she heard he had been wounded, she was relieved he was now safely out of the war, but when she learned that his injuries had been so severe that he had lost a leg, she felt guilty all over again.
Hazel frowned in bewilderment. ‘How can you lose a leg, Mummy?’ she asked. She could see how a boot could be mislaid but not a whole leg.
‘It was so badly wounded they had to cut it off,’ Giles chimed in while Daisy was still working out a suitable answer. ‘Don’t they teach you anything at that silly school of yours?’
‘They don’t teach us about cutting legs off,’ Hazel retorted, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Poor, poor Uncle James. Will he have to have a wooden one?’
Daisy wrote to him regularly, but his letters seemed distant and stilted and the military hospital was a long way off. Then he was moved to a convalescent home in Shropshire and she was able to visit him. They were uncomfortable with each other as he didn’t mention his wound and neither did Daisy. She wondered if in time-honoured tradition he had fallen for one of the nurses and found her visit an embarrassment.
‘Have you anywhere to go when you leave here?’ she asked tentatively. He shook his head. ‘Then please come to us. There is plenty of room; the evacuees have gone home and….’ She was going to add that she could fit him up with a downstairs room but wondered how he would take such a direct reference to his disability; it seemed the one thing he had no wish to discuss.
He surprised her by accepting her offer. ‘Thank you, that is kind of you, Daisy. I won’t be able to get into my own house for a while as the lease still has some time to run, I believe.’
Daisy was able to fetch him a few days before the war in Europe ended on 9 May 1945. He had one trouser leg pinned up and was walking with crutches.
He stayed until early July. He was not an easy guest, only lightening up to Daisy with the children, particularly Hazel whom he still called Nutmeg. It seemed to her that whenever she tried to be cheerful about the ending of the war, he reminded her that it was only the war in Europe that was over; there was still Japan.
Daisy too had her problems, not the least that she was more or less permanently exhausted. Coping with shortages and lack of help and having to rush back and forth between home and the business left her little time and even less energy to enjoy herself. She sympathized with James but found the way he had turned inward and away from her, or so it seemed, both hurtful and isolating. If he had not taken her completely by surprise and if he had been a little less distant, she might have given a different answer when he had astonished her by asking her to marry him out of the blue.
‘Come and sit down with me and have a last drink before I leave tomorrow,’ James had pleaded, following Daisy into the kitchen where she had been engaged in her usual struggle of getting an appetizing meal out of very few ingredients. She had turned and smiled at him, wiped her hands on a tea towel and followed him into the study, still in her apron. This room had been sacrosanct to Richard when it had been his chamber. They still called it the study even though it was now used as a family sitting room. It was the easiest room to heat in winter, and pleasant now in July. The bay window had a window seat curving round it, chenille curtains were never drawn back tightly and it was here, hidden by their heavy folds, that Hazel loved to curl up with a book. Hazel had been about to reveal herself when James had begun to speak. Agog, she had curled up tighter and listened. Afterwards she tormented herself by speculating that she could have made her mother answer differently had she revealed herself.
James had poured two drinks, from Richard’s carefully hoarded whisky supply, she noted. She had sat down and watched him bring one glass at a time to the small table in front of the sofa. He was getting quite dexterous with his crutch and she knew he would resent offers of help.
They had sipped their drinks in a companionable silence. Daisy had been thinking how she would miss him when he left when he had taken her by surprise by asking without any preamble, ‘Will you marry me?’
‘Marry you….’ Daisy knew she sounded as if it was the very last thing she expected to hear. ‘Oh, James, how can I?’
He stared at her. ‘Don’t sound surprised. You must have known I would ask you.’
Daisy shook her head and took too large a gulp of whisky. ‘No – I – I didn’t, actually. I – I thought….’ She shook her head again and murmured, ‘I don’t see how I can.’
‘What on earth do you mean, Daisy? I thought it was understood … last time I was here – before … I was wounded. You came to see me in hospital. You asked me here to recuperate. What has changed things? Is it this?’ He nodded towards the leg that wasn’t there.
‘Because of your leg? Of course not, James. You don’t think I am that shallow, surely?’
‘Then give me a legitimate reason. I’ve loved you since the moment I met you and I thought you had begun to feel the same about me.’
‘Oh, James, I do.’ There was a pause before she said, ‘I don’t see how I can. Not if you are going back to New Zealand. Giles—’
‘I asked for a legitimate reason, Daisy. Don’t put the blame on Giles.’
‘You don’t understand; you are getting it all wrong. I have to be here for the time being. Giles….’ Daisy knew she was making a mess of this.
‘I don’t think I am the one getting it wrong; I have never made any secret of my feelings for you, nor that I intended to return to New Zealand as soon as it was practical. I have been offered a position at Dunedin Hospital. New Zealand is a wonderful country, I want to go back there. And I want to take you and the children. It would be a new life in a new country, one that hasn’t been shattered by war.’
‘You don’t understand, James. I just can’t. Richard left Giles the business and this house. I have to see that both are looked after for him until he is old enough to take it on himself.’
‘The house can be leased and a manager put in the business.’ James’s voice was curt. ‘It seems to me that you are using this as an excuse to turn me down.’
‘That is quite unfair. If you really wanted to marry me, you could stay here and manage the business.’ Even as she spoke, Daisy knew this was a forlorn hope.
‘Daisy, I am a doctor. I am trained to save lives, not make boots and shoes. And I have had more than enough of England. I enjoyed my time in New Zealand, it’s a wonderful country and I want to go back. I intend to go back and this time I shall apply for New Zealand citizenship.’ He added this last part defiantly.
‘You are saying that what you want to do is all that really matters.’
‘Yes, because I know it is in the best interests of all of us. The children—’
‘How do you know what is in their best interests? They are not your children.’ Daisy stopped; she had the feeling that she had gone too far. But words, once said, cannot be pulled back.
‘If that is how you feel then it seems there is nothing left to say but goodbye.’
Daisy stared at him; she felt he was being totally unreasonable. What was happening to the love he was supposed to have felt for her all this time? James stared back, and in that moment they were strangers.
He inclined his head in a stiff little bow, turned away, and with as much speed and dignity as he could muster, left the room.
Behind her curtain, Hazel stuffed her fist into her mouth to make sure she did not betray herself by making any noise. To her horror, Daisy burst into tears, convincing her that she must not reveal herself. She did not crawl out until long after her mother had left the room. For years she would feel angry when things were not going according to plan in her life and remind herself that they could all have been enjoying a different life in New Zealand if she had only burst out from her hiding place and begged her mother to accept.
After James left, Daisy did her best to erase him from her thoughts. She worked harder than ever and tried not to grumble about the everlasting shortage of everyday things and the perpetual need to make do and mend. She looked forward to her mother returning at last from Australia, but on 15 August 1945, the very day the war with Japan finally ended, she received the news that Ella was dead. It was a shattering blow coming on top of her break-up with James.
The sound of the telephone bell ringing below in the hall had woken her. Her first thought was that there was an air raid, and then she remembered that the war was over; Japan had conceded defeat only yesterday – the bedside clock said it was five minutes past three in the morning. She tumbled out of bed and without slippers or robe hurried down to answer the summons.
‘Hello … hello …’ She could hear a woman’s voice overlaid by crackle and static, almost obliterated by the echo that followed each word. ‘Daisy – is – that – you?’
Daisy’s first reaction was that although the voice sounded like that of her sister Violet, there was no way it could be her, for all international phone calls had been stopped immediately on the outbreak of war. Then she remembered the service had been reinstated on 23 June, barely six weeks before.
‘Daisy – are you there – can you hear me?’
‘Violet, is it you? What on earth are you doing at this time of night?’ Then she remembered that it wouldn’t be any time of night in Australia but the middle of the day. An icy fear clenched her heart; there could only be one reason for Violet to telephone.
‘I am sorry. I know it must be the middle of the night – you were probably asleep – but – it’s – mother.’ As she finished speaking, the eerie echo of the word ‘mother’ reverberated in Daisy’s ear.
‘What’s the matter? Is she … is she ill?’
‘It’s – it’s worse than that. She … dead.’
Once more the word bounced in Daisy’s ear to echo again when she repeated it.
‘Dead! She can’t be – she’s coming home.…’ Even as she spoke, her brain told her it had to be true; otherwise Violet would not be calling her at this time of night. ‘What happened?’ she managed to croak after a long pause.
‘A massive heart attack – a few hours ago – nothing anyone could do.’ The line was fading out. ‘I’ll write.’
The line went dead. Daisy looked at the phone in her hand. She never said goodbye. Even as she thought this, she wondered who to: Violet or her mother?
She shivered. Even though it was August, the night had a chill to it and she was wearing only a flimsy nightdress and nothing on her feet. As if in a trance, she moved to the hall closet and pulled out an old coat which she draped round her shoulders, then, still barefoot, she padded to the kitchen where she switched on the electric kettle to make herself tea, the tried and true remedy for trouble of any sort. She was still sitting at the kitchen table, the cup clasped between her fingers, long since empty save for leaves and dregs, when the old grandfather clock in the hall struck six-thirty. She knew she must move; Hazel would be down soon and she needed to pull herself together before she told her.
Half an hour later, she stood at the window of her daughter’s bedroom, staring out at the sunlit garden. Hazel was still asleep. It seemed heartless to wake her, but when she turned around, she saw that the sound of the curtains being drawn back had roused her. Hazel’s eyes flew open and her face broke into a smile when she saw her mother.
‘Hello, Mummy, is it time to get up already?’ She stretched then pulled herself up to a sitting position. ‘I had such a wonderful dream – you’ll never guess. Grandma was back here and she was sitting on my bed, talking to me. It was so real. She didn’t get back in the night without me knowing, did she?’
Daisy stared at her daughter, unable to speak for a moment. She swallowed, endeavouring to get a grip on herself. This was not the first time Hazel had known something she couldn’t know or dreamed something before it happened. She took a deep breath, swallowed again and sat down on the child’s bed. Painfully aware of Hazel’s intense scrutiny, she sought for words to break the news gently, but they just weren’t there. She could only croak, ‘Grandma died last night.’
Hazel stared at Daisy, her lips trembling and tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘She must have come to tell me,’ she finally whispered.