Chapter Six

A Meeting with Jenny Vickery

I got a shock one afternoon when I had just completed my shift at the hospital when I literally did bump into Jenny Vickery and it was quite a little while before I was sure it was indeed she. I recognised the face, but the hair had gone blonde. The way she walked was easily identifiable, but there was an additional little swagger and I stood still for a moment to verify what I was seeing as Jenny came up to me smiling and throwing back her shoulders in what I took to be a triumphant affair, until I realized that she was pregnant. I smiled at her and she stopped walking, but there was something in her manner that made me think there might be something wrong. We smiled and I reached out to touch her hand, but in that moment, she started to cry.

I put my arms around her and she responded which was an attitude that I found strange from Nurse Vickery. She was always very forthright and predictable, but in the moment I had her in my arms, I knew that Jenny Vickery was in trouble.

“MURDERED HIS WIFE” she said... “LOVE... What is love?... Hans, I am afraid and I am worried but there is nothing I can do about it. I thought I was in love, but I’ve buggered everything up and now I am having his baby and he has committed suicide.”

The confusion made me look at her twice before I hugged her again and told her I could listen to anything she wanted to say, but she cried all the more. We sat down in a seat in the park just a few miles from the hospital and she dried her eyes and began to tell me that she had fallen in love with this man without knowing much about him, but he told her how beautiful she was and how he could make her a film star and all that stuff, which reminded me of what my lovely Anna had gone through. However, this man whom she called Herbert had a title of some sort... or so he told her and Jenny Vickery imagines she was set up for life with love and wealth in her life, until the police arrived at the flat where they both lived and arrested Herbert. Jenny could not understand what the arrest was about until the police had taken Herbert away and returned to the flat to say that Herbert had MURDERED HIS WIFE AND BABY SON... and Jenny simply collapsed.

“How can anyone be deceived like that,” she said, “I truly loved him and would never have believed all that if the police hadn’t come back to the flat to tell me, and I understood that I WAS HIS WIFE... or soon to be with the baby that we shared together.”

Jenny stroked her hair and a smug expression came over her face.

“He told me he liked blondes and I did this for him.” she said “and I was to be in Holywood in a film that he was directing... LOVE... I don’t believe in love any more.”

I felt very sorry for Jenny Vickery as she snuggled closer to me and broke her heart and I realized in that moment exactly what she meant. Her deception was cruel, but if the police had not arrested Herbert when they did, how would Jenny’s life have turned out then?

I left Jenny sitting on the park bench and wished her well, despite that fact that I knew there was nothing I could do.

It was three weeks after my meeting with Jenny Vickery that the Matron sent for me to come to her office and as usual I thought I was either in trouble for something I had done or had forgotten to do, but she looked quite differently when I sat down beside her.

There was a long silence as I waited for the punishment, but I was more than surprised when the Matron asked me if I had seen Jenny Vickery lately and I told her I had.

“Jenny is dead, Hans,” she said, “She jumped out of her flat window which was five stories up and the neighbours picked her up with her unborn baby. I didn’t know she was pregnant, did you?”

The news compelled me to sit still for a few moments and I knew of nothing to say, but my thoughts were wild. Was there anything more I could have said or done for Jenny Vickery, I thought and the Matron clicked her fingers.

“Are you alright... Herr Knust, Hans,” she called out “You look as though you are going to faint. Are you alright?” I rose from where I was sitting and staggered back to my ward where I sat down in the men’s toilet and cried as I had never cried for a long time before.

When I got home that evening, I told Anna that Jenny Vickery had died, but I did not go into the details of her suicide nor of her pregnancy.

Anna was stunned to hear the news, but knowing her so well, I knew she would sit quietly for some time and then go into the kitchen to bring me a cup of tea.

It took me some time to get the death of Jenny Vickery from my mind, but Anna was wonderful to me in that time, probably because like me, she knew Jenny as a friend, but I had spent as much time as I could with Jenny and Anna and I talked a lot about the wonderful nurse that Jenny was.

It was one afternoon, just after I had finished my shift at the hospital and regardless that we now had a car, I preferred to walk where I could as I felt this was a good exercise to acquire, but I was passing a man who introduced himself just as I was passing a local greengrocer when I stopped suddenly as I thought I knew the man who was standing outside the shop. I wasn’t sure of his name, but I knew he was one of the prisoners like myself and I touched his arm, hoping he might recognise my face and he did. He knew the face but he didn’t know the name, but I told him I was Hans Knust and he told me simply that his name was Herman, but he didn’t offer any other surname. I noticed how shifty he had become since I met him and how he kept looking at the shop door as if he was waiting for someone to come out and I too looked at the door, but there was no-one there until a few minutes afterwards a lady came out from the shop, wheeling her pram and started to talk to Herman first before she brought me into the conversation.

“Do you know Herman?” she asked me and I nodded without saying anything until she started to talk to me again, “I wish you would talk to him as he thinks he has done something wrong by moving in with me and I keep telling him that lots of people do this when they can’t afford a home of their own.”

I wondered if she knew he had been a prisoner from Germany and she confirmed my doubts by answering my very question.

“Herman is from Germany. He was a prisoner in the Home near here and he is worried that the authorities will send him back to Germany as he and I are very much in love but we are not married. My name is Martha, Martha Clifford and Herman and I are staying with my mother. My mother likes Herman and she adores the baby. It’s a little girl and her name is Debbie. Can you talk to him please and see if you can talk some sense into him?” she asked and I knew it was time to tell her who I was and how I thought I could help the man she loved.”

“Martha... I hope I can call you Martha?” I asked and she smiled and nodded with enthusiasm as I went one, “My name is Hans and as you have probably guessed by that name, I too am German and was a prisoner with Herman. There is no reason for him to go back to Germany unless it is his wish. Many of the prisoners who were in the camp with me, DID go back to Germany, but it was their wish and some of the other prisoner chose to stay here AS I DID. I too have a lady who is the love of my life, so I can understand your worries, but you should do what YOU WANT and if you are still unmarried, you can get married in a Church or Registry Office and that will be your business.”

I could see how happy Martha looked and Herman had a glow in his face that needed no explanation as they sallied off to the home they shared with Martha’s mother.

I apologised for having to leave them after that as I knew Anna would have the dinner ready and I didn’t want to be late home, but Herman ran back to me and gave me a quick hug, saying he was ever so grateful for my help and he wished me a happy time in Inverness with the love of my life.