Alan was sleeping. His sleep was far from peaceful; he struggled against unseen enemies, and cried out and panted as if unable to find enough air to breathe. He was living again the horror of that night when he was buried alive in the building where he and five others were standing, watching for the approach of the enemy.
The night had been full of noise; gun-fire, the distant sounds of traffic and bombs too, but none near them. The town in which they were situated was placed at the junction of two main roads, and it was Alan’s job to report any movement along it.
They were all tired, and too jumpy to sleep. Knowing the war must end soon made them irritated to be holed up miles from the rest of the battalion, guarding a completely empty and demolished town. There were only rats, cats and a couple of dogs to keep them company, they had not seen any other human beings for a week.
But Alan was alert and watchful. He knew the importance of their task, understood that his neglect could cost the lives of others. His eyes ceaselessly swept the horizon, barely visible, and every shape became familiar to him. Again and again they moved around his view, every shadow memorised. He was ready to warn the rest if anything changed and revealed a movement of any kind.
When the time came to change guard, Alan went down thankfully into the cellars of the once grand building to try and sleep. It must have been at the precise moment when he ceased to watch and before the other began that the tank rolled into view and fired. The misfortunes of war, he remembered thinking.
The bombardment began without more than a flash of the huge gun to warn them. The cry of the guards was lost in the explosions and the tumbling bricks and stone. Alan’s mind, as everything became black, was full of anger with himself. He knew he should have killed those dogs. Anyone seeing them walk to the front porch and wag their tails expectantly, would know there was someone there. Alan knew he had failed his men.
When they found him he was unconscious and his right arm was shattered. His face was covered in dirt-encrusted blood and he could not see. When the medical orderly cleaned his face, the sight returned and Alan looked up to see walls falling on him again and again.
The dream was always the same. He saw the walls bending, cracking and falling, he heard the rumble as the building roared its final agony and the sound invaded his brain, became louder and louder as he tried to escape from it. He felt the agony of his torn face, and the wrench of his arm behind pulled from its socket and the snapping of his bones, and he blacked out.
Each time he woke from the nightmare and the panic had faded, he felt the same disappointment, that he had lived it again, and again failed to act fast enough to avoid it.
He had not been able to sleep easily in a house since. During the week while he was at work, he spent the nights between Monday and Friday in a chair, sitting beside an open window, dozing fitfully, afraid to sleep and wake others with his horrors. On Friday evening he had always come to the woods above his old home and slept under the stars, or in the half-open kitchens in the castle ruin. He could relax and know he would disturb no one. Since Fay and Johnny waiting for him that night, he had avoided the castle and found instead a sheep fold, where an old tarpaulin across the corner gave him all the protection from the weather he needed.
Now, in the sheep-fold on the Welsh hills, far from the destroyed house in Germany, he opened his eyes. Then he jerked upright, leapt to his feet, prepared to run. Sitting opposite him was Fay.
‘You know you’ve spoilt things now you’ve found me,’ he said bitterly. ‘Now I’ll have to break the connection, and it’s all I have.’ He turned and glared at her. ‘Can’t you understand…’ He stopped. How could she? How would he explain that everyone had to have a reason for staying somewhere. There had to be something, however small, that made this place or that place better than anywhere else.
For him, it was the memories of a happy childhood. He relived the days which, looking back, seemed to be filled with sunshine and blue skies. When he was away from here, he could dream of coming home and belonging. If this was forbidden to him, where else could he go? No home, and not even the dream of one, there would be nothing for him, anywhere.
‘Come home, Alan. Come with me now and see your mother.’
‘No. Best she thinks I’m dead. The years have softened the pain and I’d only bring her more.’
‘She would rather you alive, no matter what pain you give her. Your father died six years ago and your sister Rosemary lives in Cardiff. She’s very lonely.’
‘What about me?’ he shouted. Then more quietly, ‘She’s better off not knowing. I stopped being Alan French years ago. I took a new name, and invented a past to prevent anyone knowing I had survived. Mother is happier accepting my death.’
‘How can you say that? How can you decide for her?’
‘I have tried you know – tried to go back. On the day of the Coronation party – I did intend talking to you, but I lost my nerve.’
‘So that bunch of flowers in red, white and blue, it was a message?’
‘There was too much to explain. So much had happened – things I don’t understand myself. And if I did come back I would have to alter everything in my life. I don’t think I can ever face that. All the upheaval.’
‘You’d have people who love you to help. You’d be coming home, Alan.’
He crouched and prepared to run and Fay gently touched his arm.
‘There’s too much to tell. Too much to explain.’
‘Try,’ she pleaded. ‘To begin is the hardest part.’
‘If I’d come back when I escaped from that hospital – I was in there for two years you know. If I’d tried then, there wouldn’t have been much to tell. But now – it’s hopeless.’
‘But don’t you see,’ Fay coaxed, ‘that if you wait a few more years, you’ll know that now would have been possible. Time passes and you’re getting nowhere.’ She put a hand on his face, moved to kiss him, and he jumped up and tried to run. He was immensely strong. She held on to him and he rained blows on her hands, trying to break her grip. She kept saying, ‘Alan, Alan, Alan,’ loudly, then more quietly as he calmed again until the name was no more than a whisper.
‘I told them I didn’t remember who I was, you know.’
‘But you do know. You’re Alan French and your mother lives less than half an hour from here. Come back, Alan.’
‘You haven’t told her?’
‘I tried,’ she admitted, ‘but she wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Promise me you won’t tell her.’
‘No, I won’t promise that. If you won’t go home, come back with me. I live —’
‘I know where you live. You married Johnny Cartwright.’
‘Johnny knows you’re alive, at least he believed me when I said I’d seen you.’
‘I know. I saw him the night you were waiting for me.’
‘You came?’
‘I came. That’s why I had to find somewhere else. I don’t want to make changes. I’m so tired. It’s so much effort to re-plan.’
‘Nelly knows too.’
For the first time he smiled. ‘Yes. Nelly knows. But she won’t try and interfere. She’ll leave me to live the way I’ve chosen.’
‘Come and see her. Talk to us, then the first steps will have been taken,’ Fay pleaded.
‘I have to go now. I usually walk through the fields around the town to where I live. It passes the day.’
‘At least tell me where I can reach you. Please, Alan, don’t just walk away.’
‘It’s best.’ He stared at her and she tried to see past the distortion of his scar and the confused and unhappy frown to the young man she had loved.
‘Selfish now aren’t you? You never used to be. Your mother has no one. She needs you.’
‘It’s best I leave things as they are.’
She watched as he picked up his brown coat, snatched it away when she tried to help him, and tied the belt tightly around his small waist. He looked small and unable to cope. She was bursting with the longing to help him, but knew that this time at least, she could not.
‘Perhaps there’ll come a time when I can tell you, but don’t try to find me. If you do I’ll have to start all over again. Leave everything and start all over again.’ He looked at her intently, willing her to understand. ‘Don’t do that to me, Fay.’
‘All right.’ She leaned forward and this time he allowed her to kiss him, a mere touch; strangers with a secret.
‘Leave a message if you want anything,’ she said.
‘Goodbye.’ He turned, raised his left hand in a casual wave and walked swiftly away, the limp barely noticeable. Fay wondered how much pain even that simple pride cost him.
As soon as he was out of her sight, Alan slowed his pace to ease the pain in his hip. It had been crushed when the building collapsed and walking was painful still. Fay’s pleading echoed in his mind. Could he go back? Tears glistened as he dreamed of waking in his own room, with his mother bringing in a cup of tea. For a while he leaned against a tree and wallowed in the joy of it. But it was no more than wishful thinking.
How could he begin to explain? If he could just walk in and sit down and have his mother accept his presence there as normal he would go back now. But she would expect to be told all of what had happened to him. For without being told, how could she begin to understand?
His thoughts were all of his mother. Fay had no part of his life any more. Only his mother would be able to accept him without conditions and promises. But was Fay his way back? If she could persuade his mother to meet him and not question him…? He began to walk again, thinking of the possibilities, a new lightness in his eyes.
He was parallel to the main road, and below him but out of sight, traffic moved at intervals. A lorry changed gear as it climbed the hill and then rumbled at a faster rate down an incline. The sound was loud and grew to a roar and Alan was back again in the house with the bricks falling and filling his brain with noise and terror and guilt. He staggered to rest on a stone wall, his hands stifling the screams. How could he ever go back?
Fay sank to the ground and sat for a long time, staring after him and wondering what she should do. His mother ought to be told, but was it Fay’s responsibility to tell her? And would Mrs French believe her? She needed someone to talk to. Not Johnny. He was understanding and kind, but he couldn’t help her in this. That was hoping for too much.
She strolled back home and slipped into the still quiet house and made a cup of tea. The stairs creaked and Johnny came and sat beside her.
‘Did you find him?’ he asked, staring at her, demanding the truth. When she gave an almost imperceptible nod, he added more quietly. ‘What shall we do now, love?’
Fay looked at him, at the quiet strength of him and was grateful for the ‘we’.
‘Nothing until he’s ready to face us,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Then we’ll do whatever he wants.’
Since Prue had threatened Harry with exposure over his illegal dealings, Amy and Harry had not met. Regular conversations on the phone were their only contacts, but each felt the need to talk, to meet, and touch, and be reassured of the other’s love. When Freddy and Margaret wanted to go to the pictures in town, Amy realised it was their opportunity.
‘Can Oliver come with us as well?’ Margaret asked. ‘He wants to see it as well. Loves cowboy films he does.’
‘I’ll ask his mother,’ Amy promised. ‘Mr Chartridge will probably take you into town and I’ll meet you to come home.’
There was an outburst of protest at her words.
‘Mam, going in on the bus and finding our own way home is part of the fun!’ Margaret insisted.
‘If she isn’t, I certainly am!’ Freddy said. ‘I’ve been dozens of times on my own to town. Go on, Mam, don’t be a spoil-sport.’
‘I’ll ask what Oliver’s parents think, and I’ll see,’ Amy said.
‘Good!’ Margaret danced around the small living room. ‘When Mam says she’ll see, it always means yes!’
‘I meant I’ll see.’ Amy laughed. ‘Nothing more!’
Running the village shop meant that Amy had allowed her children more responsibility and at an earlier age than most. Freddy had been forced to grow up quickly as he had to assist his mother and become the man of the house while still a child. He had often been sent into town on errands for Amy and accepted the early adulthood easily.
Margaret had remained more of a child. Partly because Amy clung to her childhood, not wanting to waste the precious years as she felt she had with Freddy, and partly because Margaret herself was less mature than her brother.
But even Margaret had to go into town without her sometime soon. The alternative, as Freddy was quick to point out, was them spending most of their time in the room above the shop, and not going to any of the places other children went.
Amy agreed to their going and after a discussion with them and with Evie, persuaded them that Wednesday was the best day for their jaunt. She gave them extra money for a snack in town to add to the adventure.
Once it was arranged, Amy rang Harry.
‘Meet me at the house,’ he said. ‘The workmen have almost finished. I’ll make sure we aren’t interrupted.’
‘I’ll go via town as before,’ Amy said. ‘No point taking any chances. If anyone from the village is on the bus, I’ll go to The Drovers.’
Wednesday was hot. Few people came into the shop and Amy thankfully tidied the cheese board and the bacon away before one o’clock and was able to get away as one o’clock chimed on her mantelpiece clock. She caught the bus and with no one she knew on it she alighted at the lane leading to the newly repaired house.
The day was perfect, the trees barely moving in the still, sunny countryside. Birds sang and added music to the air. Harry was standing in the doorway, his arms open for her. She dreamed of this as a preview to many future days.
She was thankful of the coolness of the house after the stuffiness of the bus and the pressing heat of the sun as she had walked up the lane and along the driveway. In fact she shivered in the sudden chill of the long-empty building.
The lounge was at the back of the house, overlooking a wilderness that would one day be a garden. There were french windows opening out onto a small paved area. But it faced north and even on such a warm day the room was cool. It was a surprise and a pleasure to see a fire burning palely in the grate. Harry had gathered some discarded pieces of wood from the new skirting boards and the replaced windows and lit it to warm the cold walls.
A blanket had been brought from the car and laid across the hearth and they sat on it and ate the simple picnic Harry had brought, and pretended that their lives held no problems. That the future did not mean secret meetings and lies, but an open relationship that was perfect, with everyone happy, no one hurt. Then the fire went out, storm clouds darkened the room, rain began to fall and they had to go back to the real world and its problems.
They had intended to each make their way home separately. Amy going into town, then, after a few items of shopping, back again on the bus, but it was raining heavily. Thunder and lightning snarled across the sky and Amy was worried about Margaret and Freddy.
‘I’ll drive you,’ Harry said. ‘No one will see us in this. We’ll pick up the kids from the bus stop.’ He looked at the thin, summer dress she wore. ‘You can’t stand waiting for a bus in that. It isn’t much of a chance; come on.’ He ran to open the van door and she got in. He drove to town and saw the children easily, huddled in a corner, at the bus stop.
Oliver was thrilled with the added excitement of riding home in the van. The two younger ones chatted happily, telling Amy and Harry of the film they had seen, and the ice-cream they had bought and eaten, standing in the rain.
Harry stopped first at Oliver’s house and waited as he ran in, then drove a little further to the shop and helped Amy and Freddy and Margaret out. He held Amy’s hand a moment, and whispered, ‘I love you, Amy,’ then he went home, to Prue and his other life.
In the shop the following day, Nelly was listening to Oliver telling of his adventures. ‘Pelting down it was, Gran, I’m sure the rain was bouncing back up as fast as it usually comes down! Then Mr Beynon and Mrs Prichard came past in a van and we all climbed into the back and had a ride home. You’d have enjoyed it too, Gran.’
Prue was in the shop and she exchanged a glance with her sister. Amy guessed that Harry had not mentioned the lift home. She smiled brightly at Prue. ‘I think they enjoyed the ride in the old van more than the films they saw! Just like kids. Buy them a beautiful present and they play with the box.’
‘I didn’t know Harry gave you a lift as well, Amy,’ Prue said. ‘I thought the children went on their own.’
‘We did, we did,’ Oliver said excitedly.
Nelly smiled at the way he chatted so easily. So different from the shy boy he had been when he arrived. He’ll soon be a real chatterbox, she thought fondly. Because she was concentrating on the way Oliver was telling about his adventure, she was not really listening to the other conversations. When she did, she heard alarm bells ringing.
‘Where did you meet Harry then?’ Prue asked.
‘He drove past me as I was running for the bus. It was pelting with rain. He stopped and gave me a lift and when I told him about the kids being in town, he went to find them too. Good like that, your Harry. Near Boots, it was I think,’ Amy added to make the lie more convincing.
‘But Harry was in Cardiff. How could he be passing Boots?’
Amy shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask him where he’d been. Too glad to see him I was.’
‘Harry wouldn’t let her walk in all that rain, them bein’ related an’ all,’ Nelly said. ‘Only natural, ’im givin’ ’er a lift, ain’t it? What’s to wonder about that, eh? Nothin’ odd about Harry givin’ ’is sister-in-law a lift that I can see.’ Nelly felt the air crackle and she knew she had said too much. She had over-explained, and revealed the fact that an explanation was necessary.
She smiled at Prue nervously, and avoided looking at Amy as she sidled out of the shop. ‘See yer tomorrow,’ she said to Oliver. ‘Glad you ’ad a good time, dearie.’ She blew out her breath in a long sigh of pent-up dismay when she stepped outside the shop. She didn’t quite know how, but she had made things worse for Amy and Harry, whose secret she had kept for months.
Prue waited until the shop was empty, then asked slowly, ‘How long, Amy? How long have you and my husband been lovers?’
Amy laughed and tried to bluff, but saw it was useless.
‘Talk to Harry,’ she said.
‘How long?’
‘I – I can’t say. You’ll have to talk to Harry,’ Amy said more firmly.
‘I think you had better come to the house this evening. We have to discuss this, all of us.’
‘I can’t. I don’t want the children involved in this.’
‘You should have thought of them before embarking on this sordid affair.’ Prue glared, her eyes slightly reddened with incipient tears. ‘But then, you never did think before you acted, did you, Amy?’
Amy watched her go, wondering what would happen next. Would Harry stand by all he had promised her? Now the secret was out, there was no need to delay. They could arrange a divorce and start their long awaited life together. The thought gave her less than the joy she had dreamed of, behind it all was the memory of the times when Harry had backed away from the final commitment, and had chosen to leave her.
Prue’s eyes were bright as she walked, head down, across the road and home. Her mouth was trembling as she asked herself, why? What had she done to force Harry to find someone else? And suddenly it was Amy’s fault.
Amy had always been – loose. She had come back from Yorkshire with Freddy, a little boy who she said was adopted. Amy, who had to have a man, even if he belonged to someone else. Freddy’s father was probably a married man; that was why she had been forced to lie about him. Amy was responsible. Amy had stolen Harry from her own sister. Prue managed to close her door and lock it, before beginning to cry.
For the rest of the day and the whole of Friday, Prue said nothing. Harry and Amy were on edge, waiting to hear what she would say, wondering what she would do, but nothing happened. Amy waited for Harry to say or do something, but Harry could not bring himself to open the dreaded discussion. He believed Prue capable of sending him to prison, so he waited and said nothing. He went home as usual, and as usual his meal was produced and placed before him without a word. He spent his evenings in his office, and went to bed in the spare room and nothing was said.
Prue was trying to decide on the best way to punish them. She did not want Harry to go to prison. If he had understood her better, he would have known she would not be able to face the shame. No, better think of a private punishment. On Saturday morning, it came to her.
‘I won’t be coming any more on Saturdays, Auntie Prue,’ Freddy told her. ‘I’m starting work for Uncle Harry.’
‘Perhaps you are, perhaps you aren’t,’ Prue said.
The boy looked startled. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Something wrong?’
‘There might be. If I’m displeased with you, you won’t start. There are plenty of young boys only too anxious to get the job.’
‘But I want it. Uncle Harry promised me…’ Freddy looked at her and frowned. ‘What is it, Auntie Prue? Haven’t upset you, have I? Left something not properly done?’
‘There’s a curtain rail I want fixing in the spare bedroom.’ She went to the stairs, and kicking off his heavy, mud-caked shoes, Freddy followed.
‘Sure, I’ll do that for you. Uncle Harry showed me once how to fix screws in the wall and—’ He stopped, puzzled when Prue closed the door and began to un-button her dress.
The buttons went from the neck to the hem and underneath she was wearing a slip, and a bra, in pink satin. Slipping the straps from her shoulders she wriggled and allowed them to fall. The French knickers bought to please Harry, needed only the opening of a button and they too joined the rest of her clothes.
Shock registered on Freddy’s face and he did not move. Prue saw sweat burst out on his face, the blue eyes widen and show a large amount of white. She tried to smile but there was a throb in her cheek as a nervous tic developed. Then Freddy smiled too and she knew it was going to be all right.
She opened her arms to him and he stepped towards her with a gasp. Speechless, he began to groan his pleasure and the sound was enough for Prue. Inexpert as she was, and clumsy in her attempts to give him what he wanted, to the completely innocent boy, her movements were electric. He was ready for her, wanting her, desiring her and making her feel like a woman again. Wrapped in the pleasure of it she forgot for a moment who he was and what she was doing.
Afterwards, she sat on the side of the bed and watched Freddy dress. He stood facing away from her confused and alarmed by what had happened. He bent down, hunching his broad shoulders, and she watched with guilty pleasure as the muscles in his strong thighs moved. His buttocks were small and the only part that made him seem younger than the man he was.
She was confused as she sat, wrapped in a dressing gown, modesty quickly returning, and waiting for Freddy to fix his jacket. She hadn’t thought it through; what should she say? They both waited for the other to speak. Slowly he raised his eyes to her face. ‘Auntie Prue,’ he began painfully. Compassion came then and she stood and hugged him, stroked his hair.
This time he did not hold her like a lover, but hid his head low on her shoulder. She patted his broad back and whispered, ‘Next Saturday, as usual, Freddy?’
He kissed her awkwardly and stumbled from the room. Outside the house, he ran, past his house, on along the road leading to town, until he couldn’t take another step; then he sat at the side of the road for a long time just watching the traffic. Being young, it was hunger that finally persuaded him to go home.
Prue washed her body in the bathroom, puritanical disgust returning. She re-made the bed on which Harry usually slept but did not change the sheets. Part of the revenge was using Harry’s bed for the seduction of his mistress’s son. She lay on her own bed and slept.
Prue woke with a wonderful feeling of well-being, and her resolution that it would be the first and last time faded. Her longing for Freddy’s loving increased as the days went by and Saturday seemed a long time coming. She watched from the window anxiously, afraid he would not arrive, but he came, and after a wave towards the window where she stood, he began his work. With hands that shook slightly, she began setting out the cups for his coffee break.