‘How’s the hospital?’
‘Same as ever.’ She was sick of it, if the truth be told. The endless grind of dirty dressings and bedpans, the smell of sick bodies and pain and fear. Some days when it was time to get up she lay there and wished she could sleep forever. Once a month she made the trip home and there would be red salmon sandwiches and Victoria sponge and she’d get an hour or two up on the hills. She would go to Grandma’s grave most times and say hello and wonder whether life would have felt any brighter with Grandma still in it. And she would climb up to a vantage point, to Little Craven or Goat’s Head, and sit and let her eyes roam and let everything ebb away, all the feelings and the pictures and the words, let them empty from her, seeping into the earth like dew. Leaving her cleansed and grounded. Just bone and breath.
The city was choking her. Sometimes she felt like a mole, especially doing nightshifts – living underground, never coming up for air. Some of the other girls had got married and given up work. Married women weren’t allowed to nurse. But Caroline could see no end to it. She couldn’t go back and live at home again, the presence of her parents too much like a reproach. And what would she do all day?
She dropped two sugar cubes in her coffee and stirred.
‘You look tired,’ Paul said.
She concentrated on the spoon, the circles in the froth. She didn’t want his pity. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I’ve missed you.’
‘Don’t.’
She saw his jaw tighten.
‘So what’s this studying?’
‘Business. How to keep accounts, import and export, trading law, stock-taking. Correspondence course. I’ve picked quite a lot up.’
He missed me. She tried to concentrate on the conversation. ‘You’re thinking of setting up in business?’
‘Yes. I’ve got some compensation through. Not heaps but enough to start me off.’
A crowd piled into the coffee bar, voices raucous, the boys teasing the girls and the girls giving lip back. Someone put the jukebox on, ‘She Loves You’ blared out. Caroline loved the song, it was a new group from Liverpool called The Beatles, but it was impossible to talk above the noise.
‘Let’s walk,’ he said.
They headed for Whitworth Park. It was a dull evening, warm and humid, midges danced in clouds beneath the trees in the park, a gang of children kicked a ball about, their squeals punctuating the murmur of the city.
They stopped to sit on a bench. Paul propped his stick against the end. ‘Caroline, there’s something I want to say.’ He spoke quickly, tripping over the words. ‘I don’t know what your feelings are for me but I meant what I said. I have really missed you.’
‘Paul…’ She felt her mouth get dry, her hands shook a little.
‘Please, listen. The business idea. You talked about gardening. Well, I’ve been thinking, it could be a nursery. I’ve enough to buy some land and I could run the financial side, the paperwork. You’d be in charge of all the rest.’
‘You want to go into business with me?’ She was confused.
There was a pause.
‘I want to marry you.’
‘No!’ she exclaimed.
‘Caroline.’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘Don’t you care for me?’
‘I can’t marry you,’ she repeated. You don’t know about me. You don’t know what happened. It wouldn’t be fair.
He stood up, his face flushed. ‘I thought you’d be sympathetic. See beyond the ruddy cane and the game leg.’ He grabbed his stick and slammed it against the bench.
She stood too. ‘Oh, Paul, it’s not you. Don’t think that. It’s me. I can’t. I don’t deserve you.’
‘Is there someone else?’ He said tightly.
‘No!’ She exclaimed, then, ‘There was before.’ Did he understand what she meant?
‘You still see him?’
‘No.’ She waited. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter, really.’ He felt for her hand, clasped it tight against his chest. ‘If it’s over, I don’t mind, Caroline, really.’
‘But Paul…’
‘Marry me.’
She shook her head. ‘You’ll meet another girl, someone… better.’
‘I don’t want anyone else, better or worse. I want you.’ He spoke urgently, his face creased with anguish. ‘I’ve been going crazy. We could have a future together, a good one. Get married, buy some land. It was your dream… I thought you might feel the same.’
‘I do…’ she whispered. She blinked furiously. Tell him about the baby. Tell him now. No. She didn’t want to think about it. It was too hard. She couldn’t. She saw herself watering plants, potting on seedlings. Outside, rain and shine. No more antiseptic and bloodied dressings, enemas and vomit. Paul with her, sharing their lives together. She might never meet a man she liked so much. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Yes. I will marry you.’ She was smiling and tears ran into the corners of her mouth. He gazed at her, his own eyes bright. ‘Ow!’ she said. ‘You’re hurting my hand.’
He kissed her then. Tentative at first as though he was holding back and then hungry. She thought how strange that she had promised to marry him before they had even shared a kiss.
Part Three: Growing Up
Joan Lilian
Pamela
Pamela
‘Goal! What a goal!’ Her dad leapt up and Pamela bounced off the sofa and back on again, her arms raised and cheering with him.
Geoff Hurst. Geoff Hurst had made it four-two and there was no way Germany could beat that in the remaining seconds.
‘We won the cup, we won the cup, eee-aye-adio, we won the cup!’
Her mum stuck her head through the serving hatch. ‘Have we won?’
‘Four-two! And it was two-all at the end of full time. Two goals in extra time! Fantastic. Hurst was unbelievable.’
They watched the squad go up to receive their medals and the cup and hoist Bobby Moore on their shoulders. The Charlton brothers were playing, Pamela liked them best. Dad liked Alan Ball.
The beginning of the summer holidays and Pamela had plans. Mum and Dad had been saving all their cigarette coupons and they’d enough now to get a pogo stick. She’d helped count last night after tea. They said she could get one before Christmas, when, as she had pointed out, it would be too cold for it. Then they’d been to see The Sound Of Music the night before. It was absolutely brilliant. Pamela wanted her mum to get the LP so she could learn all the songs. The Nazis had been awful. She was glad she hadn’t been a Jew then. Dad said there were still things like that going on, it wasn’t always Jews. Like black children in America and South Africa who weren’t allowed at school with white children. There were only two black children at Pamela’s school but you had to be Catholic or pay lots of fees to go there. School was OK. The worst was when a gang came up, especially the big girls, and said, ‘Are you a mod or a rocker?’
Pamela wasn't anything but you couldn’t say that, they made you pick one. Sometimes if you got it wrong they pulled faces or pushed you. Sometimes they said, ‘Who do you like best, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?’ She loved the Beatles, they were miles better, and her favourite was Paul because he was the most good-looking. Elizabeth, her friend at school, liked John because he was funny. But he wore glasses. Ringo was sweet but he had a big nose. She didn’t know anyone who liked George best. George Best, hah!
In the middle of the holidays they’d go to Criccieth. They would set off really early in the morning and not even have breakfast and sing songs all the way. ‘Summer Holiday’ and pop songs like ‘Pretty Flamingo’ and ‘Every Turn’ by Candy and Dusty’s new one, ‘You Don’t Have to Say Forever’. She knew all the words to that one and could sing it really loud and Dad would be the instruments, the trombone and the drums.
There was a caravan at Criccieth and it was so good. If she was an orphan and she had to live somewhere by herself she’d go there and live in a caravan. And get a dog. A golden Labrador that would walk to heel and fetch the paper. Auntie Sally had one called Queenie.