The War Widows. Leah Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ was alert, curious, stretching out fingers to snatch a treat, but Susan shook her bowed head.

      ‘Just look at that child, Mother. She’s the spit of Freddie,’ Lily hissed. ‘I think we should tell them the truth and get the others down.’ Lily drew in a deep breath and swallowed. ‘There is no easy way to say this—’ she ventured, looking at the two women.

      ‘No, this is my duty as head of this family. I’ll do it,’ Esme interrupted. She drew herself up and turned to them both. ‘I’m afraid my son, Freddie’s, had an accident. He is…was in Palestine on duty. There was an explosion. I am so sorry but he did not survive. He will never be coming home now.’

      There was silence as the words sunk in.

      Anastasia crossed herself and Susan shook her head. ‘I saw the black scarf on your arm. I think something bad is going to happen. Black is for sorrow and sorrow is etched on Daw Winstanley’s face.’ The Burmese girl spoke softly, bowing her head.

      ‘What we do now?’ sobbed Anastasia.

      ‘Make a cup of sweet tea, Lil,’ ordered Esme.

      ‘Poor Mister Stan. Poor Susan Liat with no Stan to welcome me. No home, no village, no grass roof house and roses by the door, no sitting in the cool of the evening while Stan smokes his pipe. Do you know how many gold bracelets Auntie Betty sold to buy our ticket? The journey was so long and the war so terrible. I walked through the jungle from the Japanese. Many died. Mister Stan says he loves me and will send for me one day. What do we do now, Daw Winstanley? I am not going back.’

      Susan sat there weeping, and Joy touched her tears with her podgy fingers, unaware all their plans were in ruins.

      Then Levi slithered into the room like a snake coiling his way round the furniture, followed by Ivy with her pinched cheeks and puckered lips, smelling of setting lotion and pre-war perfume. They were curious enough now not to want to miss out on the story unfolding. Ivy sniffed a quick glance at the two women as if they were a bad smell.

      ‘Whatever they have to say, Mother, better be said in front of both of us,’ she snapped, pointing at them.

      Lily sometimes wondered about Levi and Ivy’s marriage and what private disappointments had so quickly soured the two of them.

      ‘We won’t speak ill of the dead. Freddie is not here to defend himself. It’s what we do with them now that’s my greatest concern,’ said Esme.

      ‘I am sorry to bring trouble to your door,’ Susan sniffed through her tears. ‘I was not brought up to be a nuisance. My father, Ronnie Brown, was a British soldier. He died of sickness and when my mother remarried I went to live with her sister, Auntie Betty. I know English ways. I went to a Christian school. I have my teaching certificate from Rangoon College in my trunk. I have sold everything I have to be with my intended. Now I don’t know what to do. Do not turn us from your door.’

      Lily shook her head. ‘You’re both tired and shocked. There’s a bed upstairs prepared for one of you but we can find a camp bed for the other. We’ll not turn strangers in distress from our door, will we, Mother?’ Suddenly it became important to stand up for these strangers. ‘You were friends of my brother and you must stay until you sort yourselves out.’ That got the hand grenades flying overhead.

      ‘Mother! There’s hardly room for four extras! What about ration books and bedding? Neville’ll be upset,’ whined Ivy, lips tight like purse strings.

      But Esme was standing firm. ‘Lil’s got a point. Neville should have been out of a cot months ago. He can kip down on a mattress in your room. He’s too big for the pram in the hall. Our guests will have to share the boys’ old room in the attic and the kiddies can top and tail in the cot for a night or two.

      ‘But, Mother, it’s not right to encourage immorality. They may be lying to us, for all we know.’ Ivy was clinging to her argument and her territory, but Lily knew that the first salvo had reached its target when Esme came to her defence.

      ‘Just look at that kiddie, the one with the long name…Concertina. Anyone can see who her father is. It tears my heart to see those kiss curls. And as for the other lady, school teachers in my experience don’t lie. What’s done is done. We won’t turn them from this door, not at this time of day and after such bad news. It’s hardly Christian, is it?’

      The girls flashed her a look of gratitude but Ivy wanted the last word as usual.

      ‘Levi, tell your mother it’s not decent. It’s not fair on Neville, having heathens in the house,’ she said. There was not an ounce of sympathy in her voice. At least Levi had the decency to stare up at the ceiling, saying nothing.

      ‘Come on now, if our Freddie led them up the garden path then it’s our responsibility for the moment not to make matters worse,’ Lily replied in their defence.

      ‘Judas!’ Ivy spat in her direction.

      ‘Come on, ladies, Lil will show you to the top floor. You can freshen up before we have some supper. There’s enough hot water for the kiddies to have a bath with Neville. They smell as if they need changing,’ Esme replied.

      ‘Mother!’ yelled Ivy up the stairs. ‘Neville must go first. I don’t hold with girls and boys together. You never know what ideas they might get. Our Lily is right out of order.’

      Lily followed behind, reluctant to leave them alone.

      How terrible to have to share a room with someone who’s shared a bed with your fiancé. How would she feel if Walter produced another girlfriend out of the blue? What disappointment and grief were bottled up inside these two lasses and no one to understand them now? Each one wishing, perhaps, that the other was dead instead of Freddie. How could she leave them in this state?

      Su climbed the stairs with a heavy heart, up three flights and turns to a large attic room with windows in the roof. Levi brought up the cot piece by piece, huffing and puffing, eyeing them both as they unpacked their cases.

      ‘Here we go, ladies, one cot and some spare nappies from the airing cupboard. There’s warm milk in the kitchen when you are ready.’

      ‘Joy needs no nappies. She’s a clean girl now,’ Su said.

      ‘My child is still at the breast,’ said Ana.

      Levi blushed and fled downstairs.

      Alone for the first time since they both stood up together in the aerodrome, they turned their backs on each other, trying not to cry. Su wondered how she could share a room with someone who had shared a bed with her Stan. The disappointment and grief was hanging over her back like some heavy blanket. If only they had married in secret. If only he had stayed in Burma and set up home with her, but no, he got aboard a ship and forgot all about her.

      For Joy Liat, no Daddy with a pipe and medals. All her dreams were crumbling to dust.

      ‘I do not understand. Stan is my man, not yours,’ Su said, pulling out one of her precious heavy silk longyis, a sarong of dark blue embroidered material, brought as a token of her heritage. Now it would serve as a curtain to hide her modesty. She would make a screen of it.

      ‘He say you dead, his foreign girl in Far East. No letters come from you.’

      ‘How could I write when he did not write to me?…This screen will СКАЧАТЬ