Loves Me, Loves Me Not

‘Why?’

‘Well, I was the pilot, wasn’t I? And they couldn’t even trust me to get them home safely.’ He stared down at the table. ‘A Dutch family found me. By then the plane was burning. They dragged me away. Took me in. I couldn’t speak, not even to thank them.’

‘Shock?’

‘Maybe. They hid me until the war ended, then they handed me over to the British army. I was sent to a military hospital near Cologne. I still couldn’t speak. They thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. I had difficulty in remembering my own name. I think I was trying to escape from who I was.’

He looked up suddenly. ‘Do you think that’s crazy?’

‘No.’

‘Then the nurses arranged a dance. They dragged along anyone who could walk and some who couldn’t. The band began to play. And I remembered Laura.’

Now it seemed as if he couldn’t stop talking. All his memories of that time rushed out. I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep.

The next day, Sunday, my mother said we should let Raymond have a lie-in. I helped Mum prepare the vegetables and then I went down to the Seacrest.

Thelma was serving breakfasts but the only guests were a middle-aged couple and their airman son who had just been demobbed. So I sat at one of the empty tables with a cup of coffee. Every now and then Laura’s mother gave me a nervous glance. When the guests left the dining room she joined me. ‘I can guess why you’re here.’

‘What did you do with his letters?’

She wasn’t prepared for that. ‘Letters?’ She tried to sound surprised.

‘Raymond wrote to Laura, he never got an answer.’ I stared at her and she couldn’t meet my gaze.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I mean, some letters did come but it was too late. We didn’t want to upset her.’

I leaned back and studied her, obviously wanting to escape but not knowing how to do it with any semblance of dignity.

The night before, Raymond had told me that as soon as his troubled mind had gained some equilibrium he had written both to his mother and Laura. Very soon he’d had an answer from his family solicitor regretting to inform him that his mother had passed away not long after receiving the news of his plane being shot down.

‘My mother was all alone,’ Raymond said. ‘My father died some years ago.’

‘How dreadful.’ I reached across the table and took his hands.

‘But Laura never replied to my letters. I was frantic. I thought she might have died in an air raid. I tried to persuade the powers that be to release me—compassionate grounds and all that—but they said I was mentally unstable. In the end a wise nursing sister pointed out to them that it was not knowing what had happened to my fiancée that was making me unstable. Grudgingly they agreed. So I came here and they told me that she had gone—had married someone else. She hadn’t waited.’

‘But you were—’

‘Posted missing, presumed dead. Presumed dead. She didn’t wait very long to find out if I’d really kicked the bucket, did she?’

There was a silence as we stared at each other. ‘Did Thelma tell you who Laura married?’

He returned the pressure of my hands and smiled at me sadly. ‘She married Bill. I’m sorry, Jeannie.’

I couldn’t speak; I just held on to his hands. He seemed equally reluctant to let mine go.

‘Thelma told me that my letters had never arrived but I’m not sure whether I believe her.’

And that was why I was sitting in the dining room of the Seacrest the next morning. My silence must have prompted Thelma to try and justify herself.

‘Listen, Jeannie,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t put Laura through all that again. I mean, she’d found a good man in Bill and to call the wedding off at that stage would have been too much for her.’

‘How can you say that?’ I shook with anger. ‘To find out that her fiancé, the man she loved, was still alive, how could that be too much to bear?’

‘Because by then she’d given her heart to Bill.’

‘Given her heart? Do you believe that?’

‘Why else would she marry him?’

There was nothing I could say. I could hardly tell her that some folk thought Laura was so determined to be married that almost anyone would do. I believed that Laura had been genuinely heartbroken and that Bill had been kind and understanding and that it had been entirely understandable for her to clutch at his support.

But as Thelma and I faced each other over the table I remembered what Raymond had said the night before. She didn’t wait very long to find out if I’d really kicked the bucket, did she?

I got up to go. Thelma hurried after me.

‘Jeannie, you’re not going to do anything, are you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re not going to write to Laura and tell her that Raymond has turned up, are you?’

‘No, I won’t write.’ She needn’t have worried. After one or two letters, Laura had stopped writing to me. I’d had enough pride not to pursue the matter.

‘Good girl.’

Thelma tried to embrace me but I pulled away and hurried out of the hotel and along the seafront to the cries of the gulls and the waves crashing on the shore.

I expected that Raymond would go home—wherever home was—but he didn’t.

‘What is there to go back for?’ he said. ‘My mother’s dead, I have no brothers or sisters, my father’s business was sold some time ago. There’s still some money owing to me and I’ll tell the solicitor to sell the house. But I’ll have to find a job.’

It was my lunch hour and we were sitting in Vicky’s Tea Rooms having poached eggs on toast.

‘Will you go back to acting?’

Raymond looked astonished. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Acting. I mean you were on the stage, weren’t you, and about to go into films?’

‘I was a photographer. I worked for my father’s small studio but when he died I became a sort of freelance. I wasn’t much good with the sort of posed family portraits my father did. I suppose I wanted more action.’

‘But we all believed that when the war began you had been on the point of becoming a film star.’

Raymond smiled. ‘Blame Laura. I was vexed when I discovered that’s what she was telling people but I didn’t want to embarrass her by putting things straight.’

‘But how could she have got that idea?’

‘I’d been commissioned by an agency to do some head and shoulder portraits of young hopefuls that were to be sent round the casting directors. The agent told me that I looked like film star material myself and offered to sign me up. So the story she put about wasn’t exactly a lie.’

‘Would you like to be a film star?’

‘I’d hate it. I’m much happier behind the camera.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘I might try my luck over there.’ He nodded towards the window.

I turned my head and saw he was looking at the local newspaper office.

I wished him luck and hurried back to work. Clouds were gathering and I could smell rain. But despite the dark clouds my spirits soared. I couldn’t understand why I was so happy until I realised that it was because Raymond, who could have gone anywhere he pleased, had decided to stay here.

My mother said Raymond could lodge with us until he was ‘on his feet’ and we all tried to get back to a normal existence. The first time Raymond came with me to the Roxy I could see that everyone felt awkward. But gradually the mood relaxed and we were treated as part of the crowd.

Raymond made a quick trip back to his old home in Elstree. He cleared the house and then handed the keys over to the solicitor. He didn’t bring much back; only his clothes, a couple of cameras and several boxfuls of photographs.

The local paper didn’t take him on straight away. They gave him some unpaid assignments as a trial. One or two of his photographs appeared in the paper, then he was told to try and write words to go with them. They called it ‘copy’.

Eventually they gave him the verdict. That evening after tea he was very quiet. It was my mother who was brave enough to ask him what had happened. Raymond looked grave.

‘Well, they said my photographs were all right.’

‘Only all right?’ Dad asked.

Raymond nodded, looking down at his plate so we couldn’t see his expression. Then he suddenly looked up and grinned. ‘But they said my writing was first class.’

We all looked at each other, completely baffled.

‘So?’ Mum said. ‘Are they giving you a job or not?’

‘They are, but not the job I applied for. They’ve offered me a job as a reporter. I start next week.’

Well, Mum got her bottle of sweet sherry from the sideboard and we all drank to his success. But the smiles faded when Raymond said that he wouldn’t be taking advantage of our kindness for much longer. He intended to find a flat. Mum told him there was no need for that and Dad said he was welcome to stay, but Raymond said that he might be working awkward hours and he didn’t want to inconvenience us. We could see that he’d made up his mind to go and I was completely unprepared for how desolate that made me feel.

I cleared the table and hurried into the kitchen. I was surprised when Raymond followed me and shut the door.

‘I don’t need your help,’ I said waspishly.

‘I haven’t come to help. Or, rather, I have, but there’s also something I want to say to you.’

‘What?’

Raymond laughed. ‘Jeannie, if only you could see yourself. Please don’t scowl like that. I’m nervous enough.’

‘Why should you be nervous?’

‘Because I have no idea what your answer will be when I ask you to marry me.’

I don’t know how long we stared at each other. Me with my eyes wide with shock and Raymond looking as nervous as he claimed he was. And then, without anything being said, we were in each other’s arms.

When my mother came into the kitchen to see what was keeping us, the dirty dishes were still in the sink. We moved apart, smiling foolishly, and all Mum said was, ‘About time. I couldn’t be more pleased, lad.’

Raymond was to wear one of his pre-war suits for the wedding. I was resigned to wearing my best skirt and jacket. It was a serviceable navy-blue serge, not exactly a bride’s first choice, but Pamela in the haberdashery department found a posy of silk anemones that had been behind the counter since before the war, enough to make a spray for my lapel and also to decorate my extremely unglamorous felt hat.

Then Dad came home with some parachute silk. It was perfectly legal. A pal had told him that they were selling it off at the air base and that, as it was coupon free, women were snapping it up to make underwear and curtains, as well as wedding gowns.

My mother and Pamela made my dress and when I tried it on for the final fitting the three of us cried.

‘You look beautiful, our Jeannie.’ My mother sounded surprised.

‘Of course she’s beautiful,’ Pamela said loyally. ‘That’s what being in love does!’

‘No, it’s more than that,’ Mum said. ‘She’s like the ugly duckling.’

‘Mum!’ I spluttered.

‘No, I mean it. You were just an ordinary lass and, of course, everyone compared you with Laura, but you’ve become a truly beautiful woman.’

So we all cried again and when Dad came home from The Fat Ox he shook his head, lit his pipe and retreated behind the evening paper.

I was a June bride. Pamela was my bridesmaid and Dennis, one of Raymond’s new pals from the paper, was best man. After the service we walked across to The Fat Ox for the reception in the room upstairs. While everybody was eating and drinking Mum quietly packed a hamper of sandwiches, sausage rolls and angel cakes for us to take away with us.

We couldn’t afford a honeymoon so we spent the first night of our married life in our little flat above Ida’s Hat Shop in Park View. Raymond had moved in weeks before and had completely redecorated every room.

Mum had also put a bottle of sherry in the hamper and we picnicked on the hearthrug by the glowing bars of the electric fire, like children who weren’t quite sure if it was all right for them to be alone with no one to tell them what to eat or what time to go to bed.

I couldn’t remember ever being so happy. For weeks after the wedding I lived in a kind of blissful glow. But one night when I came home from work my happy little world received a jolt.

Raymond had got home before me and he was sitting at the table looking at photographs. At first I thought he was looking at his own old photographs but then I noticed that it was the shoe box of my own snaps that Mum had brought a few days before; I hadn’t got round to finding a home for it.

There was no reason why Raymond shouldn’t look at the photographs. Over his shoulder I saw myself as a baby, as a schoolgirl enjoying picnics on the beach with my parents, and a later one of me grinning and wearing Dad’s air raid warden’s tin hat. As my eyes roamed over my past I saw Raymond slide one photograph under the others.

But he looked up as if nothing had happened. ‘You should put these in an album.’

‘I might, but now let’s put these away so I can set the table.’

I gathered them up quickly and put the box back on the sideboard. Next day was half day closing and I got home early. I lifted the lid and took out the top few photographs. I knew exactly which one I would find at the bottom of the pile I’d picked up from the table.

There were just three of us. Laura, Bill and me. Their wedding day. She was holding her bouquet and clasping his arm. I stood a little apart, clutching my own bouquet. We were all smiling, just as the photographer had told us. I put the photograph back and shoved the shoe box into the bottom of the wardrobe. Out of sight, out of mind. Except I couldn’t forget the way Raymond had hidden the photograph beneath the others, as if he didn’t want me to know which one he had been staring at.

But Raymond seemed happy enough and I was content. As Christmas drew near I began to make plans to have Mum and Dad at our place. I started putting things away and spent my spare time going through recipes in magazines.

It was during a tea break at work that Pamela came looking for me. ‘I thought I’d better tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’ I said without looking up from the recipe for an economy Christmas pudding.

‘Laura’s home.’

I raised my eyes slowly. ‘What?’

‘Laura, she’s come home. She’s left Bill.’

There it was, everything that would take my wonderful world and shake it up—maybe smash it to smithereens.

‘Why has she left him?’ I asked. I wondered if someone had written and told her that Raymond had survived the war.

‘She hated it. The life out there. Miles away from the nearest town—all those sheep—and nowhere to go for a night out. Anyway, she’s home. And…well…’ Pamela paused uneasily.

‘What?’

‘She must have found out by now about Raymond.’

‘Yes.’ Suddenly I felt cold. ‘Yes, I suppose she has.’

That night Raymond and I had planned to go to the Roxy. I looked at him over the table as we ate our Welsh rarebit and wondered if I should tell him. I didn’t think he knew because he acted pretty much as usual, telling me about his day and asking me about mine.

I could have told him then. Oh, today, I could have said, nothing much happened except that Pamela told me that Laura has come home.

But I didn’t. I washed the dishes and got ready and hoped that at least she wouldn’t be coming along to the Roxy. I mean in those days a woman who had left her husband simply because she was bored attracted scandal. Surely Laura wouldn’t want to draw attention to herself?

I was wrong. The dancing hadn’t even started when she walked in. Raymond and I were sitting at a table under the balcony and he had his back to the dance floor. He heard the shocked gasps and the murmurs of surprise and he looked at me. ‘What’s happened?’

All I could do was stare.

Raymond frowned and turned his head slowly. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. A wave of nausea hit me as I sensed his shock.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. The words caught in my throat.

He turned to look at me. ‘Why?’

‘She’s left Bill. I should have told you.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

I didn’t have time to answer him even if I could have. Laura had seen us and she came straight across the floor. People drew back and I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that some held their breath.

Just as if nothing had happened, just as if there had been no years in between, she smiled at Raymond and held out her hand, as he had done the first time he had asked her to dance. She didn’t even look at me.

The music began and they started to dance. People watched, just as they had before. There was no denying that together they were the most glamorous couple anyone had ever seen.

Gradually the other couples surrounded them and soon I saw only glimpses of my friend and my husband as they moved around the floor. And then I lost sight of them altogether. I stood up and searched keenly as the couples danced by, but soon there was no denying it. Raymond and Laura were no longer there.

Cold. I felt so cold. I made my way to the foyer and collected my coat from Hilda.

‘They’re up there,’ she said, nodding towards the stairs that led to the little snack bar.

I was mortified that anyone should think I was looking for them. I didn’t say anything. I put my coat on and walked out.

It was bitterly cold on the promenade. The wind gusted viciously, snatching my breath and knifing cruelly through my body. But, instead of making for home, I headed north towards the lighthouse and watched its wide beam sweep across the turbulent waters. Tears made cold tracks down my face and every now and then I tried to rub them away with my gloved hands.

I stopped when I reached the cemetery. The dead end of town, as we used to joke when we were children, and turned round to go home. There was nothing else to do.

The front door seemed to open of its own volition the moment I put my key in the lock. My mother was standing there. She must have been waiting in the tiny hallway, listening for every footstep.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked, and I knew she was angry because I hardly ever heard her swear.

‘Walking,’ I said.

‘Honestly, Jeannie, if I wasn’t so pleased to see you I would smack you! Now, come upstairs and take your coat off. Sit down by the fire and I’ll make you a cup of cocoa.’

Cocoa. My mother’s remedy for all ills and upsets.

‘Your father and Raymond are out looking for you,’ she said when she came back into the room. ‘Your father’s sick with worry and Raymond’s near demented.’

‘Raymond?’

‘Yes, Raymond, your husband. Remember him? He told us you’d simply walked out on him at the Roxy and, when he realised you’d gone, he came straight home. When he found you weren’t here he thought you might have come to us.’

‘Did he tell you why he thought that?’

‘Yes, he did. Laura’s back and he…’

Before she could say any more we heard the front door open and worried voices on the stairs as Raymond and my father ascended.

‘She’s here,’ my mother said even before they had opened the door of the living room.

‘Thank God,’ Raymond said.

My father just stared. I could see his distress and it would have broken my heart if there had been anything left to break.

‘We’ll go now,’ my mother said. ‘You two need to talk.’

I watched them go. Raymond just stood and stared. He’s going to tell me now, I thought—tell me that he still loves Laura.

So his next words took me by surprise. ‘Why did you run away?’

Did he really need me to tell him?

‘Because you went with Laura,’ I said. ‘I saw the way you danced with her. I realised that you still love her. You lost her once and now she’s come back.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked.

I nodded mutely.

‘Well, you were wrong!’ I don’t think I had ever seen him look so angry. ‘Completely and utterly wrong.’

‘But you left the floor together—you went up to the snack bar.’

‘And what did you imagine we were doing? Did you think we had fallen into each other’s arms?’ His face was white.

‘I…it crossed my mind.’

‘For God’s sake, Jeannie. I had to talk to her. I knew from the moment she pulled me on to the dance floor that she hoped we might get together again and I had to tell her as soon as possible that it wasn’t going to happen.’

‘Why not?’ I whispered. ‘Don’t you love her any more?’

Raymond sank down on the sofa beside me and pushed a lock of hair back wearily.

‘Of course I don’t. Don’t you know that by now? Don’t you know how much I love you? How grateful I am for every day we’ve had together?’

I turned to look into his face and saw the truth. I couldn’t help it, I began to sob.

Raymond put his arm around me and drew me close.

‘Don’t cry, my Jeannie,’ he said and those were probably the most romantic words I’ve ever heard.

Neither of us spoke after that. We lay in each other’s arms on the sofa. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, the bars on the electric fire glowed comfortingly and we fell asleep.

In my dreams I heard the music playing but there was no one in the ballroom except Raymond and me. He walked towards me across the dance floor and held out his hand. Then he pulled me into his arms and we began to dance.