‘Oh, David, David.’ Her arms went around him, her lips covered his, and they moved in tiny burning kisses to his brow, his eyes, his cheeks, his chin, before coming back to his mouth. ‘I love you, I love you so much it frightens me. I’ve loved you for years but I didn’t dare say it.’
His love had unblocked the dam, and now both their faces were wet, their tears mingling, and it was a long time before she drew away and sat up, their hands still joined. ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said softly. ‘Something good.’
‘It can’t be better than hearing you say you love me.’
She looked at him, at his dear, dear face, and in spite of all that had happened that day she relished the moment. ‘We’re going to have a baby, you’re going to be a da.’
For a moment she thought he hadn’t taken it in because his expression didn’t change, and then a look came over his face which humbled her. He reached out his arms and she fell against his chest, and together they lay quiet for a moment before he said, in a tone of wonder, ‘My cup runneth over, lass.’
Part 6
Homecomings and Departures
1945
Chapter Twenty-four
The man who stepped out of the train in Central Station had grey hair which was quite white at the sides above his ears, but almost every female head turned for a second glance as he made his way through the milling crowd. He was in uniform but this wasn’t what drew their eyes; the war had only been over a month in Europe, and Japan was still to be subdued, so men in uniform weren’t an uncommon sight. It was the startling good looks of the man which were so striking, despite his extreme thinness which bordered on emaciation, that and the way he held himself as though he was somebody.
The sun was shining as he emerged into Union Street, the scene of devastation some years before when a couple of bombs had hit the railway station and blown a carriage out through the roof, the carriage wheels and part of the station roof ending up in the window of a sports goods store. Today, however, the only sounds came from the moving traffic and shoppers, the mellow sunlight bathing the scene in homely ordinariness.
Once the man had hailed a taxi cab, given the driver his address and settled himself inside, the evidence of intensive bombing by the now defeated enemy became more apparent. Large areas of the town were going to need rebuilding; rubble and the burnt-out shells of buildings that had once been factories and houses seemed to mark every corner.
In the privacy of the taxi the man’s shoulders slumped, and when he raised a hand to his brow, wiping the beads of sweat which had gathered there with a crisp white handkerchief, the taxi driver said, ‘You all right, mate?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ It was stilted, as though the man wasn’t used to the sound of his own voice, and this was true to some measure.
He had lost count of the weeks and months he had been incarcerated in solitary confinement in the tiny wooden hut in one of the most exposed parts of the camp. He would be there still if it was not for the liberation of the camp because one thing was for sure, the commandant had expected him to die in there, a warning to other prisoners. Freezing cold at night and as hot as hell in the day, with the minimum of food and water to keep him alive one more day, he had been the commandant’s showpiece of what would happen if anyone else was foolish enough to ‘interfere with camp procedure’. But he had never regretted the action which had led to his confinement, not once.
‘Been away long?’ The taxi driver was nothing if not persistent.
‘A while.’
‘Bet it looks different, eh?’
‘Aye, it does.’
‘Still we showed ’em in the end, didn’t we? Old Churchill called Hitler a bloodthirsty guttersnipe, but that’s too good for the so-an’-so in my opinion. Doin’ away with himself like that, the lily-livered coward. I’d have liked to have seen him and that Eva Braun strung up by their heels like they did to Mussolini and his mistress after they’d shot ’em.’
Alec looked at the back of the taxi driver’s head. He wanted to ask if that would have helped the hundreds of thousands who had died from starvation, typhus, typhoid and tuberculosis in the concentration camps, or whether it would have sent a message to the commandant’s wife who’d had a lampshade made from tattooed human skin. But he didn’t. He had got out of the habit of talking, and if you had not been there and seen the things he’d seen with your own eyes, the futility of such meaningless revenge wouldn’t be comprehended anyway.
For days on end that psychopath in charge of the camp had had Lieutenant Strong staked out on the parade ground under a burning sun, and what had the lieutenant’s crime been? He had picked up one of his men who had passed out during morning inspection which had gone on for hours in the extreme heat.
On the fifth night, under cover of darkness, Alec had crept and wormed his way across the parade ground to where the blistered body lay, and when it had become apparent that the lieutenant was near the end, he had done what his officer had asked him to do and ended the man’s ordeal by holding his hand tightly across the lieutenant’s nose and mouth, praying with him as he did so. And then the guards had found them.
The taxi driver, offended by the lack of patriotic fervour that had greeted his words, lapsed into silence, leaving Alec to his thoughts.
He was glad he’d managed to get to see the lieutenant’s family as he had promised him he would. They had been just as he had thought they’d be, both boys the spitting image of their father and his wife an attractive woman with sad eyes. After telling the lads their father had died a hero, he had then lied through his teeth to Mrs Strong, assuring her that her husband’s death had been quick and painless. It was the last thing he had been able to do for the man who had become his friend.
‘Here we are then.’
The taxi driver’s voice brought Alec out of his musing. The vehicle was passing through the gates and then it slowly scrunched its way up the pebbled drive to the front of the house.
After he had paid the driver and the sound of the taxi’s engine had faded away, Alec stood for a while just looking about him in the dappled sunlight. Birds were singing in the trees and the May blossom still scented the air with its sweetness, despite it being the second week of June. If he shut his eyes he could imagine it was just as he had left it an eternity ago, but the once pristine lawn, smooth as a bowling green, now held regimented rows of vegetables; only a small border of grass remained.
All this was his now, and plenty more besides. The thought brought no rush of excitement or pleasure; in fact no emotion whatsoever stirred in him. It had bothered him at first, this lack of feeling since his release from the box which had been his cell for endless months, but now he hugged it to him. He did not want to feel, not ever again.
He had not been popular with his doctors when he had insisted on discharging himself from the hospital he’d been brought to on his arrival in England. He had only stayed three weeks. His detachment from feeling was beginning to be breached by some of the poor devils in there, and he had wanted to be by himself once more. And so he had left, travelling first to Kent to fulfil his last act of respect to Lieutenant Strong, after which he had found a little bed and breakfast place deep in the countryside, where he had slept and eaten and walked the days and nights away, in that order.
The camp commandant had been a law unto himself and had allowed no letters in or out of the camp, and only on his release did Alec discover he was a widower, and that his family had received no word as to whether he was alive or dead since he had been taken prisoner.
He informed the appropriate officials that he would like notification that he had survived the war to be forwarded to his family and that he would be returning to Sunderland in due course; he had been adamant that no information should be given regarding the date of his arrival in England or the location of the hospital he was being taken to. With the exception of perhaps Matthew, there was not a person in the world who cared if he was alive or dead, and after four long years maybe even Matthew had changed.
The sun was warm on his head; the last two or three weeks had been unseasonably hot, which was just as well, Alec reflected with dark humour as he walked to the front door. A walking skeleton didn’t look so bad with a tan, and the last couple of weeks out in the fresh air had taken away the deathly pallor which had so shocked him when he had first looked in a mirror after his release.
The front door was not locked when he tried the handle, something which brought home the fact that Margaret was no longer there. Her nervous disposition had meant that both the front and back doors had had to be locked at all times. Poor Margaret. He tried to feel regret at her passing but his life in this house was so remote now, it could have belonged to another person in another lifetime.
He entered the house and was standing in the hall, amazed at how nothing had changed, when he became aware of a presence on the perimeter of his vision. Half turning he looked towards the stairs and there was his son, but he saw instantly that the boy had been replaced by a man.
Matthew stood staring at him, one hand resting on the banister halfway down the stairs and the other hanging limply by his side. Alec was just as taken aback. It was a moment or two before he said, ‘Hello, Matthew,’ and he was surprised to find his voice sounded quite normal.
‘Da?’
The voice did not belong to the tall, broad-shouldered man standing looking at him, it could have come from a child, but as Matthew took the last few stairs in a great leap, his voice was loud and deep as he shouted, ‘Da! It’s really you!’
Da? Alec found himself enveloped in a bear hug, his mind completely blank except for that one small word. Da. Not Alec. Not even Uncle Alec. Da.
When Matthew drew away, Alec saw that his son’s face was wet, but until he tasted the salt on his own lips he wasn’t aware he was weeping himself.
A strange racing, churning feeling flowed through him; it was threatening to drown him. To avoid being swamped by it, he forced himself to try and speak but no words would come. And then Matthew said, his voice now just above a whisper, ‘I’ve been here every minute I’ve not been at work since they told us you were all right. I knew you would be, somehow I just knew. I never stopped believing you’d come home.’
He couldn’t let himself go, not now, not in front of the lad. He put out his hand, much as a blind man might do, and said, ‘I need to sit down,’ but his voice broke on the last word and his eyes were blinded by tears.
Somehow he found himself sitting in an armchair in the drawing room some minutes later, a glass of whisky in his hand and Matthew directly in front of him on a stool he had pulled close. ‘I . . . I’m sorry.’ The ice of protection had started to melt and it was pouring out of his eyes still, in spite of all his efforts to control himself.
‘Don’t be. We - us here in England, I mean - we’ve heard a bit of what went on in some of the camps. Was . . . was it very bad?’
‘Bad enough.’
Matthew waited for more, but Alec did not go on. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbed at his face, then stuffed it back in his pocket before finishing the whisky in one gulp. ‘I think I need another one.’ It was wry.
Matthew rose and refilled the glass without comment, and it was only when Alec had drank half of it that he lay back in the armchair with a sigh, his eyes still fixed on Matthew. ‘I didn’t expect any sort of welcome, apart from maybe Mrs Browell, that is.’
‘She’s out shopping with Gran.’
Alec did not comment on this. ‘Out there in the hall, you said . . .’ He pulled in air through his nose. ‘You called me da.’
‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’
‘She told you?’
‘Yes. No.’ Matthew shook his head, running his fingers through his hair from his brow to the back of his neck. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘I’ve nothing but time and I want to hear it.’ Alec reached out and grasped one of Matthew’s hands. ‘She never admitted to me you were mine but I always knew it. What made her tell you?’
‘Gran, I suppose.’
‘Gran? You mean my mam?’
Matthew nodded. ‘It happened like this . . .’
Alec had finished the whisky by the time the story was told. He sat forward in his seat when Matthew said, ‘And I ran out of the hospital and went home and cleared out my things. I slept on a pal’s bedroom floor for a couple of weeks and then Mrs Browell said I could come here till you got home. He came round to see me when I moved here.’