Secrets

  At that point Mrs Salloway came into the room carrying an enormous summer pudding. Clearly she hadn’t heard the raised voices as she was smiling. Michael realized there was no way he could sit down again and eat pudding, so he made for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ his mother cried out, rising from her chair too.

  ‘Away from all of you,’ he said sharply. ‘To be with people who actually care about my happiness.’

  He ran upstairs, threw his belongings into a case, grabbed his uniform and was back downstairs opening the front door, when his mother came rushing out of the dining room. ‘Don’t go, Michael,’ she pleaded, tears in her eyes. ‘You’re all I’ve got.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said sharply. ‘You’ve got two other children with unhappy marriages and four grandchildren too.’

  ‘But you know you’ve always been my special child,’ she implored him, wringing her hands. ‘I couldn’t bear it if I lost you.’

  ‘If you want to keep me, then you must accept Adele,’ he said. ‘When you can do that, let me know.’

  He left then, the sound of her crying ringing in his ears. She was still standing at the open door as he drove away.

  By the time Michael had driven down through the Landgate towards the marshes, he knew he was in no fit state to drive back to Biggin Hill. He’d had two large gin and tonics before dinner and then wine. While by no means drunk, he was upset, and it would be folly to risk having an accident.

  He thought he would go down to Curlew Cottage. He didn’t want Adele to know what had occurred tonight, but she was back at the nurses’ home in Hastings, and he was pretty certain Mrs Harris would be sympathetic and give him a bed for the night.

  The oil lamp was still glowing in the living room as Michael drew up. She was probably listening to the wireless and he hoped she wouldn’t be frightened by a knock on her door so late in the evening.

  ‘It’s me, Michael,’ he called out as he knocked. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’

  Honour was in her nightclothes as she opened the door. ‘Adele went back to Hastings this morning,’ she said, looking more surprised than nervous.

  ‘I know,’ Michael said, then asked if he could come in.

  It struck Michael how different Honour Harris was to anyone in his family as he explained the bare bones of his predicament. She remained totally calm, listening carefully without any interruptions, without even a display of hurt that his family didn’t believe her granddaughter was good enough for him.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Michael finished up. ‘You shouldn’t have to hear this. I’m ashamed of being related to them all.’

  ‘You can’t help that, any more than Adele can help the stock she comes from,’ Honour said crisply. ‘I’m not surprised at their reaction of course, I expected it. I dare say if I had remained in Tunbridge Wells in the kind of life I had had, I would’ve been equally bigoted if my daughter had wanted to marry a man outside our social circle.’

  She got up, stirred up the stove and put the kettle on.

  ‘Of course you can stay here tonight, Michael. You can sleep in Adele’s bed. I very much admire your courage, and your loyalty to my granddaughter, but I want you to think carefully before you cut yourself off from your family.’

  ‘But we can make our own family,’ Michael insisted. ‘We’ve already got you. I don’t want any of my relatives with their poisonous ideas and their warped views.’

  ‘You may believe that now,’ she said as she put tea in the pot. ‘But once you have children of your own you may feel differently. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, but I sometimes felt I’d deprived Rose of my parents’ love and attention after we left Tunbridge Wells and came here.’

  ‘Are you trying to say you think Adele and I shouldn’t marry?’ Michael asked incredulously. ‘I can’t believe someone as strong and forthright as you would bow to my family’s ridiculous prejudices.’

  ‘The strongest tree is the one that can bend,’ she said tartly. ‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t marry Adele, but I am advising caution and not burning bridges.’

  ‘Wait, you mean? Hope they’ll come round?’

  Honour shrugged. ‘There’s a great deal more to think about than just your parents’ views. War is coming, that’s almost a certainty. You will be right at the front of it as a pilot. What if you are killed and Adele is left a widow, perhaps even with a child? As long as there is breath left in my body I will help her, but I will be sixty next year. I might not be around.’

  ‘So what do you suggest then?’ he asked. ‘I can’t bring myself to tell Adele how hateful they were. I’m certainly not going back to them cap in hand.’

  ‘First we have a cup of tea,’ Honour said with a smile, and disappeared out into the scullery for the cups and milk.

  After she’d poured the tea, and given Michael a slice of Adele’s birthday cake, she sat down again and looked sternly at him.

  ‘You only have to tell Adele that you told your family of your intentions,’ she began. ‘You can say they weren’t enthusiastic, she doesn’t expect them to be anyway. Meanwhile, write to both your mother and father. Say you are saddened by their attitude and ask that they give Adele a chance to show what a special person she is. You could also announce your engagement formally in a newspaper, and plan to marry when Adele has finished her nursing training. That way it makes it quite clear to everyone that you are both entirely serious and committed.’

  ‘And if they still don’t come round?’ Michael asked.

  ‘You go ahead with the wedding. And you will have to reconcile yourselves to the fact that I’ll be the only family guest.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  January 1939

  Michael glanced at Adele as he pulled up outside the Clarendon Hotel in Bayswater. She was biting her lower lip and looking up at the hotel with trepidation. ‘Why so scared? I want to make love to you, not chop you into pieces,’ he said.

  Adele giggled nervously. She certainly wasn’t afraid of Michael, he was kind, funny and in her opinion the most handsome RAF officer in England. She also thought she must be the luckiest girl alive to be loved by someone like him.

  She thought the hotel looked quite grand too. It had marble steps up to the front door, and black iron railings in front of the basement area. It was only a five-minute walk to Kensington Gardens and in a very nice part of London.

  ‘I’m not scared of you,’ she said. ‘Only of the people in the hotel not believing we’re married.’

  ‘Hotel owners don’t care about such things,’ Michael said firmly, leaning over to kiss her. ‘Especially in London. Lots of the chaps in my squadron have stayed here, and they say the owner has one foot in the grave.’

  It was two weeks into the New Year of 1939, and they had been engaged for six months, yet they had spent little of that time together. Adele always seemed to be on duty when Michael got leave, and several times when they’d managed to be off together, Michael’s leave was cancelled at the last minute. He sometimes drove down from Biggin Hill and hung around until Adele came off duty, but that often meant they had only a couple of hours before she had to be back in the nurses’ home.

  It had become tortuous, both of them yearning to be alone together somewhere warm and comfortable. Sitting in Michael’s car parked in a secluded country lane was fine during the summer, but not so inviting on a cold winter’s night. They hadn’t even had Christmas together, as Adele was on duty, and it was on Christmas Eve, when Michael had driven down to Hastings just to give her a present, that he’d suggested going to a hotel for the night when she got her weekend off in January.

  He said he wasn’t trying to push her into having sex with him, he only wanted longer with her, away from other people, and Adele knew he meant that. She also knew that however much she’d always intended to wait until they were married, they couldn’t. Each time they kissed it got harder and harder to stop at that. She knew that one day they’d get so carried away it would just happen, and alm
ost certainly without taking any precautions.

  So it was wiser to plan for it, to go somewhere snug and private, where there would be no going home alone afterwards.

  ‘Are you ready then?’ Michael asked, stroking her cheek with one icy-cold hand.

  She took his hand and kissed the palm, tickling it with the tip of her tongue. ‘Yes, I’m ready. If we stay out here any longer I’ll turn into an icicle.’

  Michael took charge at the reception desk, talking to the stooped old man and signing the register, while Adele stood well back, trying to look as if she was accustomed to staying in hotels.

  It seemed so big to her, with an enormously high ceiling, and the imposing staircase leading off the hallway was reminiscent of the kind she’d seen in films. But the decor was shabby, with scuffed paintwork, chipped varnish and worn carpets, and a faint smell of mould and stale cooking lingered in the air.

  ‘We’re right up the top, darling,’ Michael said in the posh voice he always used when he was trying to be very grown-up and sophisticated. He picked up their small suitcases and led the way.

  They were puffed out by the time they got to the fourth floor, and Adele had to stifle her giggles as a chambermaid paused using the noisy vacuum cleaner to look at them while Michael struggled to open Room 409.

  The room was rather dark as the window was small and the ceiling sloped down to it. There was a double bed with a dark blue counterpane, a chest of drawers and wardrobe, and they were all dark wood.

  ‘It’s—’ Adele exclaimed, then broke off, not knowing exactly how to comment.

  ‘Grim?’ Michael suggested.

  ‘No, not grim,’ Adele said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe basic would be a better word.’

  ‘At least it’s got an electric fire,’ Michael said, switching on the one-bar heater fitted into an old fireplace.

  Adele stood there awkwardly as Michael warmed his hands by the fire. She had thought of nothing but this moment ever since he had telephoned to say he had booked the room. She had planned her wardrobe meticulously, her new camel coat, with the fur tippet Michael had given her for Christmas, best brown high heels and a stylish broad-brimmed hat she had bought from one of the other nurses. All the way on the train to Charing Cross she had been bubbling with excitement, imagining that it would all be seamless, a kind of whirl into romance and passion the minute they got into this room.

  But instead she felt peculiar, as if Michael was a suave stranger, not a man she felt she knew inside out.

  Michael had announced their engagement in The Times back at the end of July. He had said his father liked to think of himself as a very liberal man, and that when friends and relatives got in touch he wouldn’t want to admit he didn’t approve and would eventually come round.

  It had looked that way when soon after the announcement Mrs Bailey wrote to Adele and invited her to tea. Although the chilliness of the invitation suggested she hoped to browbeat Adele into agreeing to break with Michael, it hadn’t turned out that way. Mrs Bailey was surprisingly pleasant, and insisted that if Michael had only confided in her in advance of his announcement to the whole family she would have been prepared.

  She didn’t actually give her blessing, because she thought Michael was too young to think of settling down, especially with the threat of war hanging over them. She also pointed out that the RAF didn’t approve of their pilots getting married, and Michael’s superior officer might very well not give his permission.

  But she did say she wasn’t opposed to a long engagement as she wanted whatever would make Michael happy.

  Adele remembered only too well how self-centred Mrs Bailey was, and she guessed she was more concerned with holding on to her son because she couldn’t cope without him, rather than wanting his happiness. But at least she had met them halfway. Mr Bailey was still hostile.

  He hadn’t written to Michael, gone to the camp to see him, or even telephoned. Michael said he didn’t care, but Adele knew that wasn’t strictly true. He loved his father, why she couldn’t imagine as she’d found him totally obnoxious, but she was intelligent enough to know she hadn’t seen enough of the man to make any real judgements.

  ‘That’s better,’ Michael said as the fire began to warm the room. ‘So what shall we do?’

  Adele gulped. She wished she knew how women were supposed to behave at times like this. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Michael asked. He moved nearer to her.

  ‘I don’t know that either,’ she said, hanging her head. ‘I just feel strange.’

  He came closer still and tilted her face up to his with one finger. ‘A case of the screaming hab-dabs?’ he suggested, one dark eyebrow raised questioningly. ‘Why don’t we go out for a bit? Take a walk in the park, get some lunch.’

  Adele nodded.

  He hugged her tightly to him. ‘I feel a bit weird too,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.’

  ‘It was a good idea,’ she insisted. ‘We wanted to be alone together, and we still do.’

  It was after four in the afternoon and dark when they returned to the room. They’d walked round Kensington Gardens, had a couple of drinks each, eaten lunch in Queensway, and then had their photograph taken in a studio close to the hotel. The drinks had dispelled Adele’s nerves and it was so cold outside that she couldn’t wait to get back into the room.

  They had left the fire on while they’d been out, and the room was now really warm. While Michael drew the curtains, Adele took off her coat, hat and shoes and jumped up on to the bed and bounced. When it creaked ominously she laughed and sat down.

  ‘Do you think there’s other people like us staying here?’ she asked.

  Michael unbuttoned his tunic and took it off. ‘You mean incredibly intelligent, with fantastic looks and hopelessly in love?’

  ‘Are we all that?’ Adele asked.

  ‘And more,’ he said, leaping up on to the bed beside her. ‘I bet people who pass us in the street turn round to have a second look.’

  Adele lay back on the bed. She was wearing the dusky-pink wool dress her grandmother had made her the Christmas she walked out of Harrington House. It was getting worn now but the way it was cut made her look so elegant and shapely she felt she could never part with it.

  Michael leaned over her and began taking the pins out of her hair. ‘Your hair is like the seasons,’ he said, running his fingers through it. ‘Blonde streaks in summer, a reddish-gold in autumn, and now chestnut-brown, with little glints of gold. Once we’re married I’d like you to wear it loose all the time.’

  ‘It’s too long and straight for that,’ she said. ‘It reaches right down my back.’

  ‘So much the better,’ he said, lifting a strand of it up to his nose and sniffing it. ‘Just the thought of it tumbling over your bare shoulders makes me excited.’

  Adele giggled. ‘I’ve heard of men getting excited by breasts and legs, but never by hair,’ she said.

  ‘It was your hair that I remember most about you that first day we met,’ he said. ‘It was all wild and tangly with the wind. I used to think about it all the time when I got back to school.’

  ‘I must have looked like a beggar that day,’ she said reprovingly. ‘I was wearing those horrible old trousers and a jumper that had been Granny’s. I can’t imagine why you didn’t cycle on by.’

  ‘You looked entirely at one with the marsh,’ he insisted. ‘As natural as the plants and birds. I think I fell in love with you that day, I certainly knew you were going to become important in my life. Was it like that for you too?’

  ‘I suppose it was,’ she said reflectively, remembering how happy she had felt that evening after they parted. Meeting Michael had been the point in her life when she began to feel she might be worth something after all. ‘You were the first boy I ever really spoke to, there was something about you that felt so comfortable and right. Of course I didn’t dare read anything more into it, you being a gentleman and al
l that.’

  ‘I wish you could stop seeing yourself as some kind of underling,’ he said reprovingly, looking right into her eyes. ‘Your grandmother is every bit as much of a lady as my mother, for all that she skins rabbits and wears men’s clothes. You are like that too, there’s an almost regal quality about you. Whoever your father was, I know he must have been out of the top drawer.’

  ‘Sometimes I wish I could see my mother again,’ Adele said thoughtfully. ‘There’s so much mystery I’d like to clear up, including who my father was. Every day on the wards I see families exposing their true feelings when one of their number is sick or even dying. But people shouldn’t wait until there is a crisis before they forgive one another, or just speak their minds.’

  ‘Would you be prepared to forgive your mother?’ Michael asked thoughtfully. ‘Or do you just want to tell her what you think of her?’

  ‘I might be prepared to forgive if I got some sort of sensible explanation as to why she was so nasty to me,’ Adele said pensively. ‘I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling bitter about her, like Granny does.’

  Michael leaned up on his elbows and looked at Adele. He knew she had no idea what a beautiful person she was, both inside and out. Her skin was a peachy colour, clear as a child’s, her eyes an extraordinary mixture of green and brown with thick, long dark lashes. Yet it was her compassion for others which moved him even more than her looks. She felt for every one of the patients on her ward, listened to their stories, tried to help in any way she could. He knew that in her off-duty hours she often visited patients who had no other visitors, taking them fruit, sweets and magazines to read. She was the agony aunt of the nurses’ home too – everyone turned to her when they had problems.

  ‘I love you, Adele,’ he said, his voice gruff with emotion. ‘I will for ever.’

  He kissed her then and as her arms wrapped around him the world outside their room ceased to exist.