Sweet Lorriane. - Have you heard from Wally? Frankie says. I tell him I had a letter from Wally the day before and that he was all right and missing me. Nancy clutching Frankie's arm, says she was only thinking of Wally the other day and how he was doing. She is a pretty girl like her mother and adores her father, but doesn't know about him and me, which is just as well. - I’d be doing my bit for King and Country too if it wasn't for my flat feet, Nathan says. He is tall, lean and has dark curly hair and a wonderful smile. But I do my bit at home, he adds. He sings and plays piano at a number of clubs and sometimes he and Frankie duet together. I sit down on the sofa next to Nathan and ask Frankie if he'd get me a drink. He says yes and goes to the bar and Nancy stands staring after him as if she is afraid he'll disappear from sight. Nathan says he wished the war was over and Hitler had never been born. I think him sad as he sits there, his dark eyes staring into space. Frankie brings back the drinks and places one on the small table in front of me. - Basil’s here, Frankie says. Basil Williams is another pianist who has a small band up West. He asked if I'd sing with him next week. Nancy clutches her father's arm again as soon as he is close and looks at him with her soft blue eyes. - What did you say? Nancy asks. Frankie tells her he has to think out a few things but he'd get back to Basil, and turning looks at her with eyes that say, O.K. Honey? Nancy smiles weakly. She doesn't say a word. The room is filling up with many people and I sense Nathan's arm next to mine and his right hand wander over mine. He does it carefully so that others won't notice. I'd been to bed with the night before and can still feel his body close to mine and the scent of him. His wife, Natalie, whom he says he adores, knows nothing of this and he still buys her flowers and things, even stockings that are a rare commodity these days. Basil comes over to our little group in his gentle little paddle way of walking. A short stocky man with an air of ease about him. He stands and speaks to Frankie again. Nancy looks at him and her father and then walks off to the window, which looks out on the busy crowds down in the warm August afternoon street. Buck Clay enters the room and Nathan says he is a one of the best of Basil's trumpeters. I know Buck way back and he can do other things apart from blowing his trumpet, but I don't tell Nathan that. Buck is at the bar and looks over waving a hand. Wally found him and the others I mix with outside of his world and would get angry if I was out too late at night. Sometimes he'd come with me, but since the War he's been drifting away from me, at least that's how I feel. Even when we were bombed out during the Blitz and he was on leave I couldn't help feeling a sense of disappointment that he had survived. I knew it sounds bad, but one feels what one feels, at least that is how I see things. War does strange things to people. People drift apart and people drift together. Things full apart and certain laws try to bind them together, but it only adds to the strain. Wally and I are straining to stay together, but we are drifting away, bit by bit. I drink and he fights the War. I close my eyes and can still feel Nathan's hand on mine and a warm feeling enters me. Natalie is beside me and we both sit and listen to Nathan. He is singing and playing piano and in the semi-dark, I look round at Natalie and watch her face. She is listening intently and is absorbed in the sounds and in Nathan himself. - Moves ya, don't it, Sid Biggs says as he sits himself next to Natalie at the table. Natalie nods. She whispers words, which I don’t catch, and Sid nods in turn. He turns to look at me and smiles. Sid plays drums with Louis Strong's band but now he's resting, so he says. - How’s Wally? Sid asks and I tell him what I know. But it starts me thinking of Wally and try as I do I can't bring his face to mind. Yesterday when I was with Frankie and his daughter Nancy I almost wished Wally dead, but then I thought how bad that was and wished it not to be as if my wishing it or not wishing it could affect anything. - I might just sit in on the next set if Nathan will let me, Sid says in a whisper in my ear which breaks my thoughts. Natalie says she thinks Nathan would, and after Sid wanders off she leans towards me and says she thinks Nathan's seeing someone else. I feel my heart leap and stare at the stage where Nathan sits at the piano and try to calm my heart and head. - What makes you think that? I ask in a soft voice. Natalie says she smelt a perfume on his clothes, which wasn’t hers, and he was later home than usual. She seems to confide in me as if thinking I might know this other woman. Any idea who it might be? I ask praying she'll say no and then let the matter drop, but she doesn't. - No idea as such, she says, but I've my suspicions. She looks at the stage at Nathan and I watch her mouth move in a soft mutter. - I’m sure he's not cheating on you, Natalie, he's thinks the world of you, I state with confidence but not feeling it. She says she’s sure he is but doesn't want to believe it. And as she looks at me with her lovely eyes, I remember Nathan and me in bed together two nights before, and hope to God, I don't blush with the recollection of our lovemaking. - If you see him with someone, you will let me know won't you? Natalie pleads sadly, placing her hand on mine across the table. - Of course I will, Natalie, but I'm sure he isn't, I say. Nathan's set ends and there is applause. Natalie looks at the stage, watches as Nathan bows, and then walks down the steps towards us. - Don’t say anything to Nat, Natalie pleads, I might be wrong about it all. I say I won't and she smiles and squeezes my hand and I feel my heart thump thump thump within me. Frankie looks tired but escorts me back to my house. He lingers by the front door and searches my eyes for an invitation. I kiss him, put my arms around his neck, and kiss him again. And as I kiss him I think back to Wally and how he'd want to kiss me too when he got leave. - Penny for them, Frankie says. Your thoughts, he adds with a smile. - They’re not worth that much, I reply pushing thoughts of Wally away from my mind. Frankie stands there expectantly, his face like a young child's. I sense his eagerness and feel a reluctance to invite him in, but I do. Closing the front door, I wait for a few moments. I watch Frankie's face brighten up and his eyes search mine. I know he wants me but I don't want it all to become just a thing we do when we have a chance. He looks up the stairs where my bedroom is and his eyes are almost begging me to say something. - Can I get you a night drink? I ask walking along the passageway towards the kitchen. I walk in the dark until I'm sure all the blackouts are up and when I've check it all I switch on the light. Frankie follows me round and when the light comes on he smiles. - Fiat lux, Frankie says. - What? I say. - It’s Latin, it means, let there be light, Frankie informs me. I nod and pull a face as if to say so why the Latin. He agrees to a tea and after I've made it we go and sit in the lounge. We sit and talk about things and finally he asks about Wally and had I heard from him. - No, not since Monday, I reply. He asks what happens when Wally comes home on leave. I say I don't know and will see how things are. Then Frankie says his wife, Ava, had heard that Nathan's wife thought he was seeing someone and did he know whom it might be and he said no, but did I know. I look away momentarily as if fearing the answer might be written in my expression. I say no, but was sure Nathan wasn't seeing anyone. Frankie says he wasn't sure, but had no idea who it could be. The conversation goes on a few more minutes then I change the subject. Does Ava suspect you are seeing someone? I ask suddenly. Frankie almost chokes on his drink. - Course not, he replies. Do you think I'd be here if she did? He finishes his drink and places the cup and saucer down on the floor. Maybe I ought to go, he says. He stands and looks down at me with alarm in his eyes. - Aren’t you going to stay the night? I ask. Frankie says he had best go home. I feel a mixture of relief and disappointment, but show neither to him. All right, if you think it best, I say. He kisses me briefly on the cheek and leaves rushing along the passage as if I was going to retrain him. The door clicks behind him and I stand and listen to the silence he has left behind. Good night, Frankie, I whisper to the passageway, Good night. I wake up in an empty bed. The room is dark with the blackouts still up. I feel along the empty bed and wish Frankie was there beside me. I feel deserted. Thrown back on myself and my own lonely company. Ava had her husband for the night and I only the empty space beside me. Did they make love? I ask myself feeling a touch of jealousy enter me. I close my eyes and imagine Frankie and Ava in bed together. She's a beautiful woman and he'd be a fool not to make love to her, but I still feel jealous at the mere thought of it. I sigh heavily and slap the space beside me in frustration. Frankie had the jitters last night, I muse, my eyes still closed. And what now? Am I to hang about until Wally comes on leave? I sit up and stare at the blackout curtains. Here I am thirty-three, no children and a husband I no longer love, waiting for him to get home on leave. For what? I muse darkly. I get out of bed and open up the blackout curtains. Light enters the room. Day has come. Night has fled. I take the telegram from the telegram boy and he stands there his eyes open and full of apprehension. I open it up and read the brief message in a numb silence. I look at him and dismiss him with a wave of my hand. He goes away and I close the door. Wally is dead. Killed in action, so the telegram reads. I read it repeatedly. Numbness flows over me and my legs feel weak and rubbery. I sit down on one of the armchairs and read it again. I think, maybe I should cry. but nothing comes. The numbness flows through my whole body and I let the telegram drop to the floor. Wally dead. Killed in action, the words repeat in my mind over and over until they start to become meaningless. - Careless sod! I shout out suddenly. The words seem to echo around the room. Stupid sod! I shout out. Now I feel tears in my eyes and I'm angry and scared and want to scream. But I just cry and feel the dampness on my cheeks. I don't know why I'm crying but the tears come so I let them and memories of Wally come up in my mind's eye and I see him as he was with all that was about I loved and loathed. I remember the last time we made love: that sad, sudden, over-so-quickly way of his. Gone now. Dead. Like our love for each other, I muse tearfully, wiping my eyes and looking at the watery brown carpet. Somewhere in Italy it was. Somewhere else he'll be laid to rest will Wally, I tell myself standing at the kitchen sink looking out on the small back garden where a small patch of vegetables grow. Far away and far from home, I say to myself and feel empty as if waiting for Wally had given me something to fill the empty space. I wonder what his last thoughts were? What were his feelings about me in the end? I ask myself these questions knowing I'll never get an answer and that not knowing it both relieves and frustrates me. Wally always was a clumsy person, always banging his head or elbow. Now he's been and got himself killed, I say in a prayer like way. Did he know I was unfaithful and disloyal? I ask myself peering at the garden. Never know now and it doesn't matter, I tell myself. WalAfter lunch with Nathan and Natalie I walk with them to meet Frankie and Ava in the park. It is a warm afternoon and I feel a strange sense of freedom, which I've not sensed in years, least not since marrying Wally in 1931. - What happens now? Natalie asks. I tell her that Wally is being buried out in Italy although there will be a service for him in Lambeth where he came from. Nathan looks at me over his wife's shoulder and I can see apprehension written large there. Natalie talks on, but my attention drifts momentarily as I think of Nathan and I in bed together on Monday night and it all seems so long ago now. And as we walk on Nathan spots Frankie and Ava by the bridge and waves. Natalie looks at me her eyes tearful as if maybe she loved Wally more than I did, but she doesn't know. - Lorraine, my dear, Ava says as she embraces me. How awful for you. I sense my eyes fill with tears due to the closeness and her own tears against my cheek. Nancy is simply too upset to come, she with my mother, she adored Wally, Ava says sadly and I sense my throat tighten and my eyes blur with tears now. I play the grieving widow, but it's their tears and grief that upsets me and I feel reluctant to release Ava for a few minutes until I can bring myself under control. Frankie smiles weakly and looks away again. Maybe he thinks I'll say something about him and me. Nathan also is silent as if unsure of the future and our relationship. We walk on, Ava beside me and the other three behind walking in silence. Ava converses and I answer, but my replies are hollow as if I were partly dead too. Wally seems to have taken part of me to the grave with him in Italy and left the part of me here hollow and empty. I sit at a table in a small cafe in the park with Nathan and Natalie while the other two are talking to friends across the other side. Natalie looks across at them inquisitively while Nathan looks at me with concern. - What will you do now? he asks. I tell him I don't know and he asks if I'd sing with Basil William's band if he asked me. Natalie looks scornful at him and says he shouldn't be so insensitive. I sit and listen while they argue and they only stop when Frankie and Ava come to the table. - Problems? Frankie asks. Natalie conveys the contents of the disagreement and then all look at me. Ava says I need time to grieve. Frankie says Wally wouldn't want us all to mope and sit around with long faces and that if I felt I wanted to sing with Basil's band then so be it. Nathan apologises for upsetting me and Natalie says so he should and Ava raises her hands to calm them all. - I don't know what I want yet, I reply quietly. But deep down I know what I want. I want to live again and sing. I want to have Nathan or Frankie and start afresh before it's all too late. I want to make love and have children and be loved. But I can't tell them that. I can't tell them I didn't love Wally. I can't tell Ava and Natalie that it was me who slept with their husbands and still wanted either of them. Some things are best kept secret. Some things are best left unsaid. Something are best unknown, out there secret and silent like death waiting patiently on the edge of our lives.
Copyright © 2000 Terry Collett |