LITMIR.BIZ

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then she’d learned that her hair, which no one had ever bothered much with before, was her best feature and that she might make a good turn-out after all, and for someone who’d thought she was plain as plain could be, that prediction was a soothing one.

      So she’d walked behind Hannah down the aisle of the long church, filled with pride as she noted the numbers of people crowding the pews on either side. There was not a relative amongst them, but many of the neighbours and the friends Hannah had made in the area and in the church were there for her special day and Gloria had invited friends of her own to make the day more of an occasion.

      Arthur seemed to have few friends and no relatives either. But he’d invited some work colleagues and his boss, Reg Banks, and his lovely wife Elizabeth, and with them all the church was almost full.

      At the altar, Josie had taken the bouquet of roses and carnations from Hannah and slipped into the pew beside Gloria, who’d squeezed her arm in support, even while she dabbed at her eyes with a screwed-up lace hanky she held in her hand.

      Hannah knelt at the altar beside Arthur, letting the Latin words of the Mass wash over her, soothing her, telling her she was doing the right thing. She didn’t love Arthur, but she’d not deceived him. She’d never said she loved him, nor had he said those words to her. She’d known his reason for marrying her, he’d done it primarily to please his boss.

      The boss’s wife, Elizabeth, who Hannah had taken to straightaway, had confided in Hannah as they’d washed up in the kitchen the first time they’d been asked to dinner. ‘Reg thought Arthur a bit of a cold fish. The sort of man married to his mother, you know the type?’

      Hannah had nodded. ‘He was very fond of her,’ she said. ‘It upset him greatly when she died. He told me all about it.’

      ‘Oh, I know it did,’ Elizabeth said, handing Hannah a plate. ‘I’m not meaning to make light of it, but somehow while she was alive, he didn’t seem able to let go and get on with his own life. You do understand me?’

      Oh yes, Hannah fully understood.

      ‘Of course, my dear, you’ve known him some time.’

      ‘I wouldn’t say I knew him well exactly,’ Hannah said. ‘After his mother died he’d come and stay at Mrs Emmerson’s guesthouse when he had business in the Midlands, often for weeks at a time, but I’d never spoken to him more than mere pleasantries. Then, not long after he’d inherited the house in Erdington, he asked me to marry him. I had no idea he was interested in me in that way.’

      ‘My dear, any man in the land would be interested in you,’ Elizabeth said with a laugh. ‘My own husband is quite besotted. Oh, don’t you blush, my dear,’ she chided, seeing the crimson flushing on Hannah’s face. ‘You must know how attractive you are. Tell me,’ she went on, turning to Hannah in a confidential manner. ‘Was Arthur your first love?’

      Hannah swallowed deeply. She’d told no one about Mike, no one but Gloria, but she’d never been asked so directly before. ‘Don’t be upset or embarrassed, my dear,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It would never go any further than here.’

      ‘There was someone,’ Hannah admitted. ‘I … I was engaged to him. We … We were going to get married by special licence, just in a registry office, you know. He had leave coming up, but we knew it was likely to be just forty-eight hours. We were due to tell his parents then, but we didn’t foresee any problems. We’d met many times and they liked me well enough.’

      Hannah had stopped even attempting to dry anything and stood with a plate in one hand, the tea towel held to her chest with the other, distress showing in every inch of her body. Her eyes were shining with tears and the sense of loss struck her suddenly and with such force, it almost took her breath away.

      Elizabeth knew that Hannah was back there with her soldier and she made no movement, nor any attempt to speak. The room was very still and Hannah, her voice made husky with the tears that had squeezed out of her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks, went on. ‘It was all arranged when suddenly all leave was cancelled and he was transferred south.

      ‘Everyone was talking about the “Big Push”, but although I wanted the war to be over, I also worried for Mike. He’d been injured before, but I had a funny feeling about this. I suppose I sort of knew when the letters stopped, but I hoped. You see, I had received no official news. That went to his parents.

      ‘I didn’t know that at first. When I’d had no letters for almost three weeks, I called to see them, frantically worried. They lived in Dewsbury in Huddersfield, quite a distance from the hotel where I worked then. I found their house in darkness. Boarded up! Empty!

      ‘It was about another couple of months before I heard any more,’ Hannah said, ‘and that was from his friend, Luke,’ remembering the letter Tilly brought to her just before she fled from the home. ‘He told me Mike had been killed minutes after landing on the beach. He’d been caught in the blast himself and ended up in hospital on the south coast. He’d been out of it for a few months and not in any state to write to anyone.

      ‘It was his mother visiting him that had given him the news that Mike’s family had just disappeared. He’d not taken it in at first. He was very ill and still getting to grips with Mike being dead. They’d been special friends for years.

      ‘It was afterwards he realised I would probably know nothing. He still couldn’t write because he’d broken nearly every bone in his body in the blast and was in plaster up to the eyeballs. He dictated a letter to the nurse telling me everything he knew, which was precious little. I … I remember I went a little wild at the time.’

      She looked at Elizabeth suddenly, her face contorted in grief, her eyes ravaged. ‘I was beside myself,’ she said. ‘Half the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew I had to get away, everything in Leeds reminded me of Mike, places we’d been to together, people we knew. I couldn’t stay.’ She stopped and her voice dropped to a mere whisper. ‘If I’d had Mike’s parents’ support, things might have been so different. As it was …’

      ‘Is that why you came to Birmingham to Mrs Emmerson’s?’ Elizabeth asked gently.

      Hannah barely heard the question. She remembered how fearful she’d been then, beaten down with shame, panic-ridden. Nowhere she could turn to. The plate she hadn’t been aware she’d still been holding slipped through her fingers and shattered to pieces on the tiled floor.

      Stupefied, Hannah stared at it for a couple of seconds before dropping to her knees and beginning to gather up the pieces into the towel while she gabbled, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs Banks, truly sorry. I really don’t know what came over me. I just … I don’t know how it happened. What must you think of me?’

      ‘My dear! My dear!’ Elizabeth said soothingly, lifting Hannah to her feet as Reg’s voice called from the other room, ‘You two women having a smashing time out there?’

      Hannah looked towards the kitchen door, terrified Reg would appear there any second and order her and Arthur from the house. Elizabeth caught the look and made a dismissive flap of her hand towards the door. ‘Don’t mind him, that’s his attempt at a joke. As for the plate, don’t worry about it. It’s just an old thing.’

      It was no such thing, it was one of a Wedgwood set that Elizabeth was very fond of, but she felt Hannah had been so terribly upset by the revelations and remembrances that she’d urged her to tell, that she didn’t have the heart to tell her. Elizabeth had felt the raw emotion running through Hannah, making her whole body quiver, as she’d helped her up and now she eased the young woman into a kitchen chair. ‘Now you stay there,’ she admonished. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea and that broken pottery will be cleared up in no time.’

      Hannah had been glad to sit, for her legs had shook so much and a roaring had begun in her ears and filled her head and she’d been afraid she was going to faint. But to her great relief, she didn’t and eventually the pounding of her heart eased and her breathing returned to normal.

      That incident between Elizabeth and Hannah was never referred

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