And it was true-she was reaching the end of her tether. She almost gave way entirely when she and Joe stood in the mortuary regarding Sylvia with her baby in her arms, ready to be buried together. Joe’s arm was strong about her, but even he nearly yielded to terrible grief at the sight of the child.
‘My grandson,’ he whispered as tears streamed down his face. ‘My first ever grandchild, and we meet like this. Poor Sylvia. Poor Helen.’
They supported each other through the three-way funeral, and afterwards Joe put his arms around her. ‘We’ve both lost everyone else,’ he said huskily. ‘There’s just us now, love.’
Like others who had suffered devastating losses, Dee and her father survived as day passed into day, week into week and month into month. He’d said they had just each other, and for now neither of them wanted anyone else. Christmas 1942 was their first alone, and they were thankful to pass it quietly, refusing all invitations.
These days she relied totally on Mr Royce for news of Mark, so that when she went in one morning in the new year to find him looking grave, she knew what had happened.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she said bleakly.
For a moment the world went dark. She clutched the back of a chair, then felt him supporting her until she sat down.
‘No,’ he said. ‘He isn’t dead.’
‘Not dead? Do you mean that?’
‘I swear to you that he’s alive, but he’s very badly hurt. His Spitfire was hit during a battle. He just managed to limp home but, as he landed, the plane burst into flames. They brought him here. He’s lucky to be alive.’
‘But he is alive-and he’s going to stay alive, isn’t he? Isn’t he?’
‘I think so.’ The words were cautious.
‘But it’s not certain?’
‘He’s been very badly burned and he needs help. It’s lucky you’re here. The sight of you will help him.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Come this way.’
As they went along the corridor he said, ‘I’ve had him put in a separate ward. I’d better warn you that he looks pretty alarming. He was engulfed in flames. It was a miracle that his face escaped. His helmet saved him, but he has burns all over his torso, and an injury to the head where he hit it.’
She paused as they reached a door, Mr Royce pushing it open quietly and standing aside.
Dee approached slowly, and gradually the bed came into view. Then she stopped, appalled, shaking at the sight. In her worst nightmares she hadn’t imagined this.
The man on the bed could have been anybody, so totally was he covered in bandages. They extended over his torso, his arms, up over his neck and around his head.
Where was the daredevil young hero who laughed in the face of danger? Gone-and in his place lay this helpless baby. She wanted to cry aloud to the heavens that it wasn’t fair of life to do this to him. Why was there nobody to defend him?
But there was, she thought with sudden resolution. She was here now. She would defend him.
‘Has he been unconscious all the time?’ she asked softly.
‘No, he’s come round and muttered something, but of course most of the time we keep him heavily sedated against the pain.’ Mr Royce examined a chart. ‘Going by the time of his last injection, he should come round quite soon.’
‘You can leave me alone with him,’ Dee said. ‘He’ll be safe with me.’
‘I’m sure he will.’
When the door had closed, Dee came closer to the bed. As a nurse, she was used to horrific sights, but nothing in her experience helped her now. This was the man she loved, lying alone and in agony.
His eyes were closed and his breathing came with a soft rasping sound that was almost like a groan. Now she could see just enough of his face to recognise him. The mouth was the one she knew, wide and made for laughter, but tense now, as though the pain reached him, even in sleep.
Dee drew a chair forward and sat down, leaning as close to him as she could get. ‘Hello, darling,’ she whispered.
Nothing. He didn’t move or open his eyes, but lay almost like a dead man.
‘It’s me-Dee,’ she persisted. ‘I heard you’d been injured, and I had to come and see you. Even after what happened, we’re still friends, aren’t we? You still matter to me, and I want to see you well and strong again.’
Silence but for his soft breathing. No sign of life. Refusing to be put off, she continued, ‘You really will be all right in the end, although it may take some time. They say you’re pretty badly hurt, but I’ve nursed men with worse injuries and they come through it because they can’t wait to get up there in the sky again.’
She was stretching the truth here. She knew how unlikely it was that Mark would ever return to being an airman, and how long it would be before he could live any kind of normal life, but she couldn’t afford to think of that. Only one thing mattered and that was bringing him back into the land of the living. If she could do that, and even one day see him smile again, she cared for nothing else.
She went on, forcing herself to sound cheerful. ‘I wish we were still engaged. Oh, don’t think I’m trying to trap you. You were always too clever to be caught by any woman. But you don’t seem to have anyone of your own.’
The truth of that struck her with force. The star of the squadron, the man every girl wanted to flirt with, and more. But he had nobody; no family, nobody had been allowed to get close to him. Except herself. She had crept closer than anyone, yet even she hadn’t suspected his essential aloneness before now. He’d always worked so hard to conceal it.
Had he done so knowingly? she wondered. Had he really understood himself that well? Somehow she doubted it. Whatever Mark’s qualities, insight wasn’t one of them. That was why he had needed her. But she hadn’t seen it either, and had rejected him.
‘Are you glad I came to see you?’ she asked him. ‘I hope you are. I know you’re asleep but maybe you can hear me, somewhere deep inside you, and perhaps…perhaps your heart is open to what I want to say. Oh, I do hope so because there’s so much I want you to understand.
‘I was clumsy before. I loved you so much that I was afraid to let you know, in case it embarrassed you. You see, I knew you didn’t love me-well, maybe a little, but not as I love you. I was so happy when you asked me to marry you that I didn’t let myself worry about how it happened. All I saw was that I could be your wife.
‘I was fooling myself, but I wouldn’t face it because you were everything to me. And when I did face it-I went a bit crazy. I blamed you for not loving me, but you can’t love to order. Nobody can. You have to accept people as they are, or back off. I backed off. I thought I was doing what you wanted. Now I’m not so sure. Perhaps I still have something to give you-something that you need.’
A soft rumble came from between his lips, almost as though he was signalling agreement. Of course, that was fanciful, which she never allowed herself to be. But perhaps, just this once-
‘Oh, darling, if only I could believe that you hear me and know what I’m trying to say. I came here as soon as I knew you were hurt because if there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll do it. It doesn’t matter what it is. Do you understand that? Anything at all.’
She looked down at his hands lying on the blanket; one bandaged, the other uncovered. How fine and well shaped it was. How well she remembered it touching her, teasing softly through her thin clothes, making her want him in ways that she knew she shouldn’t.
Inching her way forward cautiously, she took his free hand in hers, caressing it softly with her fingers. He neither moved nor showed any sign of a response, and her heart ached to see his power reduced to this helplessness. She would have given everything she possessed to see him restored to his old self-mischievous, disrespectful, outrageous, infuriating, magical. Even if it meant that she would lose him again, if her heart broke a thousand times over, she would accept it if, in return, she could see him happy.