tripe? How many times have women pretended to adopt a long lost cousin or niece? The child might call them aunt in public, but everyone knows she’s really the mother. Or else she gets her own mother to take the child on and makes out the child is her sister. Why don’t you ask Rona to do that?’
Cathie almost laughed out loud. ‘Absolutely not!’ she spluttered. ‘Not all women are natural mothers, and mine most certainly isn’t. Besides, I’ve just explained who Heather is. Why won’t you believe me?’
He glared at her, lips curling with disgust. ‘Because I know when I’m being lied to. Were this child really your niece then someone else could easily adopt her. Someone who can offer the child a proper home and a father. Why should it be you, unless the child really is yours?’
Cathie let out a heavy sigh. ‘I’ve already told you that Sal and I were very close, so I feel that I owe it to my late sister’s memory to take good care of her baby.’
‘Stuff and nonsense! I assure you that I’ve no intention of taking on another man’s child. Why would I? It’s that Steve fellow, isn’t it?’ he shouted, wagging a furious finger in her face. ‘I saw you with him the other night, giving him a kiss. You could have told me all about this child then.’
Devastation hit her that Alex should imagine for one moment that she could love anyone but him, let alone engage in an affair. ‘That’s not true, Alex! Steve and I are just old friends, nothing more and never have been. We don’t even get on terribly well, constantly falling out. And that was simply a thank you peck on the cheek for all the work he’d done. I’d been helping him run that charity event, as you know full well.’
‘Don’t take me for a damn fool,’ he shouted, in the kind of dismissively stern voice that denied argument. ‘Who else would it be, if not him? Some Yank perhaps? You did say when we were at the Ritz that there were plenty stationed near Manchester, and who attended the dances, so that’s a definite possibility.’
‘I also made it very plain that I was not involved with them in any way.’
He shrugged. ‘Whoever the father is, like many other young women parted from their man by this dratted war, you’ve behaved like an absolute slut and betrayed me. Not even bothering to send me a “Dear John” letter. My mother was right. This is the reason you wished to rush me into marriage, to find a father for your child.’
Cathie felt herself start to shake, with anger now rather than nerves. Why wouldn’t he believe her, or even listen to a word she said? ‘I’m no slut! And it was you who said you were in a hurry to marry, the moment we met at the station. I didn’t at all mind waiting a little while, as it’s a job I’m most urgently in need of. You weren’t very sympathetic about that either, saying I wouldn’t even need one now we were about to marry.’
‘Well, I was wrong there. We aren’t going to be married, so it will indeed be necessary for you to find yourself employment fairly quickly, so that you can afford to feed this bastard child of yours.’
At which point Cathie stormed out of the house.
Cathie felt utterly devastated as she poured her heart out to Brenda as they strolled around the market a week later, Davina absent for once. She’d thought of Alex as the love of her life, and believed that he felt the same way about her. Yet he was convinced she’d betrayed and lied to him. ‘All these years of waiting and praying for his safe return, and now he’s tossed me aside as if I were some sort of harlot. Why won’t he believe that little Heather is my niece? Nor has he offered sympathy for the loss of Sal, not even in any of his letters let alone in person.’
‘It sounds very much as if he’s turning his back on reality,’ her friend quietly remarked.
‘I can fully understand why Alex would have no wish to speak of his own traumas, whatever they might be, but why is he so dismissive of my own?’
Had he been a touch more sympathetic she might have shared her own horror story with him.
‘Sometimes, the only way of coping is to “forget”,’ Brenda was saying. ‘To shut the horrors from your mind, just as everyone else who has suffered in this war does.’
‘I appreciate what you’re saying, and you know that I have first hand experience of grief as a result of this war, and other traumas too. I agree that locking away painful memories does often feel like the best way of dealing with the problem. But, as you’ve told me many times in the past, Brenda, sometimes talking about these issues can help, so why won’t he do that? Or properly listen to mine?’
‘He’s rather like Davina in that respect. Who knows what happened to that husband of hers? She won’t even tell us his name. I can talk endlessly about my beloved Jack to anyone willing to listen, if not about the manner of his death. Isn’t that how it should be?’
‘Oh yes, I’m happy to speak of Sal’s love of Christmas, of movies and singing, but not her accident. I prefer to remember her in life, not the manner of her death. With all the hardships I’ve had to face, and being forced to accept the wartime attitude of “we can take it”, it was the prospect of Alex’s homecoming that has kept me going.’
Brenda nodded, her round face filled with compassion. ‘The problem is that despite the war being over, things seem to be getting worse, not better, which is hard for ex-servicemen, for all of us. Peace is not bringing the end to the misery that everyone hoped it would. There’s a feeling of anticlimax, as if the bright blue, sun-filled sky has clouded over again, leaving a feeling of uncertainty about the future. A grey chill seems to hang over everything.’
‘Oh, you’re so right,’ Cathie said, pausing to haggle over the price of a rather poor selection of fruit and vegetables on one of the stalls. She finally added two tomatoes, a small turnip and a few potatoes to her bag. ‘There are still too many shortages, queues are even longer as rationing continues and austerity beckons. We barely have enough money to buy coal to keep a paltry little fire burning in the grate, assuming we can find any to buy. We’ve burned all sorts of stuff over the years, including stools and old chairs in order to keep warm.’
Brenda chuckled. ‘I burned the clothes prop once, feeding it in an inch or two at a time.’
‘But no longer can anyone say: “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”’
Both girls were laughing now as they recalled the number of times this mantra had been repeated over the years. ‘Making ends meet is not easy, and bartering still very evident, if you have something to barter with,’ Brenda agreed. ‘I reckon only black marketeers are making any money.’
‘So what happens now? How can I convince Alex that I’m innocent of this charge of having an affair?’ Cathie asked, bleakness descending upon her once more. She valued Brenda’s friendship greatly, but when suffering traumas in the past Sal had been the one she’d turned to for comfort. Sadly, having lost her lovely sister, to now lose Alex made Cathie feel more alone than ever, and everything so much harder to deal with. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘How do I face life without him?’
‘With courage, darling, a skill you’ve never been short of, so have faith in yourself and the future you can create for this little one.’
Cathie smiled through her tears as she watched little Heather happily bobbing up and down in her pram, gazing about her with bright-eyed interest. ‘Thanks, but being a little jealous is one thing, accusing me of sleeping with another man, quite another.’
‘He is fond of you though. Steve, I mean. He always has been.’
‘Don’t talk daft. The pair of us were for ever at odds, and the number of tricks he’s played on me over the years doesn’t bear thinking of. He’d hide my favourite doll, set off bangers and crackers to scare me on bonfire night, and make me run round and round a gravestone then put my ear to it to listen to the dead talking. Which