42
SAM
October
I stepped off the train at King’s Cross Station and stared around me in a daze. We were here. Really here. The air was thick with smoke and soot; the clamour of voices, the tannoy, the shriek of train whistles, the thump and clank of pistons and the hissing of steam echoed up into the curved roof high above me, leaving me feeling completely disorientated. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept properly, or eaten a square meal. There’d been a delay getting into Liverpool and it had been a rush to get on the London train – there’d been no time to think about anything else.
‘Sam! Yoo-hoo!’
I turned and saw Vera and Stanley hurrying towards me, Stanley walking with a slight limp. My heart flipped over. ‘Where’s Ruby? She OK?’
‘She’s fine,’ Vera said. ‘A little tired today, that’s all, so we left her at home to rest.’
Stanley snorted. ‘Forced her to, more like. She would’ve walked here in her bare feet if we’d let her.’
Vera took hold of my hands. ‘Oh, Sam, she’s going to be so glad to see you! We all are!’
Stanley, who had a hat balanced at a jaunty angle on his head, smiled and stepped forwards to embrace me, slapping my back. ‘Hey, buddy. So damn relieved you made it. Until Ruby wrote and told us about you being in Southampton, we thought you hadn’t.’
I remembered the last time I saw him, lying in the straw at that farm in France with his leg all shot up. Sixteen months ago. It felt as if a lifetime had passed since then. ‘I thought you were a goner too,’ I said. ‘Guess we both got lucky, huh?’
He shook his head. ‘You’re telling me. So where’s that sister of yours? You lose her somewhere?’
I looked round. ‘Meggie? Where did you go?’ I spotted her a short distance away, leaning over to look into a crate full of hens. ‘Get over here!’
She danced across to us. ‘There’s birds in there, Sam!’ When she saw Vera and Stanley she hung back, suddenly shy. I wiped a smut off her face with my sleeve, and gave her a little push forwards. ‘Say hi to my friends – Vera and Stanley,’ I said.
‘Hello, darling.’ Vera crouched down and held out her hands. ‘Welcome to England. We’re awfully glad you’re here! And don’t you look grown up? How old are you now? Ten?’
‘I’m nine and a half,’ Meggie said. She gave her a smile, still shy, but allowed Vera to hug her. She was wearing a green cotton frock, old but clean, which I’d bought from a thrift store in New York with the money Stanley had sent me. It had paid for the suit I was wearing too. We both needed a haircut pretty badly, though.
‘C’mon.’ Stanley clapped me on the arm. ‘You look done in.’
He had a car parked outside, dark blue with gleaming chrome trim. ‘Beauty, isn’t she? It’s an Austin Twelve.’
‘Yes, and it drives like a bilious donkey, so hold on tight,’ Vera warned as Meggie and I slid into the back seat. I was so tired, I didn’t care if the thing shook itself to bits underneath us. I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. I was too wired, too excited to sleep, but maybe I could rest for a while…
‘Sam, we’re here.’ Vera leaned over from the front seat, gently touching my arm, and I jolted awake again. I didn’t even remember falling asleep; I guess it was everything finally catching up with me, and the relief of not needing to watch Meggie like a hawk for a while. The car had stopped on a pleasant-looking street; we were parked outside a row of tall buildings with narrow windows overlooking a tree-lined square. They all had window boxes brimming with flowers, and everything looked cheerful and clean, almost as if there hadn’t been a war at all.
My heart began to thud. Somewhere up there, Ruby was waiting for me. And she was having a baby – our baby. I hadn’t quite been able to believe it at first when the second cable came through from Stanley to the Philadelphia telegraph office. I’d had to read it four times before it sank in. And after that, I hadn’t been able to stop worrying. Was she OK? Healthy? Was she getting enough to eat? Why was she in London with Vera and Stanley instead of back home in Devon? Stanley hadn’t gone into detail about that; he’d just said: Ruby’s fine and staying with us for the foreseeable; will explain everything when you get here.
‘I hope you’re up to climbing a few stairs,’ Vera said as Meggie and I got out of the car. ‘We’re on the top floor.’ She indicated the building we were parked directly outside, which was painted white.
‘Yeah. I’m fine.’ I’d’ve found my way to Ruby even if she’d been on the moon: a few flights of stairs were nothing.
Was I imagining it, or had that been a face at the window just now, looking down at us? My heart was thumping harder than ever as the four of us made our way up to Vera and Stanley’s apartment, and it wasn’t from exertion.
As we reached the top floor, a door flew open, and there she was. Her hair was curled, and she wore a green cardigan and a pretty floral frock, which swelled over her stomach. I stared at her, and she stared back. Then she flung herself into my arms, laughing and crying all at the same time. ‘Sam. Sam.’
I clung to her, scared that she wasn’t real – that if I let her go, she might disappear again. I couldn’t take that – not again. ‘Hey,’ I said into her hair.
‘Do you two want a bit of privacy?’ Vera said. ‘Meggie, why don’t you come and help me make some tea?’ My little sister was staring at me and Ruby, her eyes wide and slightly puzzled.
‘Meggie, this is Ruby,’ I said. ‘You remember me telling you about her?’
‘Hullo, Meggie.’ Ruby held out her hands. ‘It’s so lovely to meet you, darling.’
‘Are you gonna be my new sister?’ Meggie asked, peering up at Ruby with her hair half falling over her face.
‘Yes, if you’d like me to be.’
A tentative smile spread across Meggie’s face. ‘I never had a sister before.’
‘Well, that makes two of us. And you’re going to be an auntie!’ Gently, Ruby took one of Meggie’s hands and laid it on her stomach. ‘There – can you feel the baby kicking?’
Meggie’s eyes got even wider. ‘When is it going to be born?’
‘Next year, in February, all being well.’
Meggie’s smile was almost splitting her face in two now. I couldn’t stop grinning either.
‘Come on,’ Vera said to Meggie. ‘Let’s go and make that tea. You can help me choose which cups to use. If that’s all right with you, Sam?’
‘Sure,’ I said.
‘Can we go down to the square?’ Ruby said once they’d gone into the kitchen. ‘It’s such a beautiful day, and I’ve been cooped up all morning – I think I might go mad if I have to stay inside any longer.’
‘What about all those stairs?’ Overhearing her, Vera came to the kitchen doorway and frowned at her in a motherly sort of way.
‘I’m pregnant, not an invalid.’
Stanley grinned, and Vera rolled her eyes at me over Ruby’s head. ‘Well, that’s me told.’
Still holding hands, Ruby and I went back downstairs. I felt a little nervous at leaving Meggie behind, and had to tell myself not to be so dumb. It was because of everything we’d been through, I guess, and all that time I’d spent in England and Europe wondering if I’d ever see her again. Truth was, it was probably Vera I needed to worry about – once Meggie got over being shy she’d start driving her half mad with questions.
Outside, there was no one about; Ruby and I sat down on a bench at the side of the square. When we kissed, it felt like coming home.
‘Oh, gosh, you’ve got lipstick all over your face,’ she said when we’d finished, swiping at me with a handkerchief.
‘I don’t care.’ I was still smiling so wide my jaw was starting to hurt. ‘Oh my God, Ruby, am I dreaming? ’Cause if I am, I don’t ever want to wake up.’
‘If you are, then so am I.’ She still hadn’t let go of my hands. She looked at the still-livid scars across my palms, tracing them gently with a fingertip, and I noticed she was wearing the ruby ring I’d given her in Southampton. ‘Do they still hurt?’
‘Not anymore, except if I’m real tired. Anyway, never mind that. What happened to you? Stanley wrote to me – he said you’d had to leave Devon.’
Her smile faded. ‘Yes. After I found out about the baby, Vera wrote to me to say she and Stanley were back in England, so I arranged to come to London for a couple of weeks, just to get a bit of breathing space, but then Father and Grandmother discovered that I was pregnant and, well, it didn’t exactly go down well.’
When she told me about what had happened with her mother, and her father kicking her out, I stared at her in astonishment. How could her ma have left her like that? And how could her pa have turned his back on her? How could you do that to your own flesh and blood and feel OK about it?
Then I thought about Ma, and how she’d chosen Kirk over me, her own son. ‘I guess you can’t always rely on people, can you, even if they’re your parents,’ I said. ‘Are you gonna do anything about your ma? Try and find her?’
She pressed her lips together. ‘At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. After the shock wore off, I was so angry – I couldn’t fathom why she’d just leave like that and not try to get in touch – not even write a letter! But as time went on I thought about our baby, and what it would be like if I had to leave and wasn’t able to get in touch for some reason. And that made me wonder if perhaps she did try, but Father and Grandmother threw away the letters or something. I wouldn’t put it past them! And of course, with them not speaking to me any more, there’s no way to find out. Stanley’s been making enquiries – he has lots of connections thanks to working for that newspaper in Washington – and he thinks he might have found an address.’
‘But that’s marvellous!’ I said. ‘Have you written to her yet?’
She pressed her lips together again. ‘I’m writing her a letter now. Perhaps you can read it for me – help me work out what to say.’
‘I’ll do whatever I can to help,’ I said.
‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you write to me? I was so worried!’
I took a deep breath. Then I told her everything that had happened since I set foot back on American soil.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I kept telling myself it would all work out, you know? That I’d get a job and a place for us to live and then I could write to you and you’d come over and it would all be OK. But things just kept getting more and more screwed up, and I didn’t know how to tell you. I felt like such a goddamn failure.’
‘I hope you really hurt your stepfather,’ she said savagely. ‘What a – a bastard.’
She leaned her head on my shoulder, and we sat there for a while, like we used to at the lodge.
‘There’s something else I need to tell you,’ she said at last, sitting up again. ‘Oh dear – I do hope you won’t be angry. I should have told you in Southampton, but I didn’t want to spoil our time together when we only had one night.’
I looked round at her and saw she was frowning, biting her lip. ‘What is it?’
‘When – when I thought you were dead, Alfie Blythe asked me to marry him. And I – I said yes. I broke it off as soon as I got back from seeing you – I would have broken it off before if I’d had time, but all I could think about after your letter arrived was getting down to Southampton. I shouldn’t have done it but at the time I thought I was never going to see you again, and Alfie was so keen – I couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of my life alone, looking after Father till he died, and—’
‘Hey, hey.’ I squeezed her hand gently, cutting off her frantic stream of words mid-flow. ‘Don’t worry. I get it. It’s fine.’
‘You’re not – you’re not cross?’
‘Why would I be? If anything had happened to me I’d hate to think of you without anyone at all. That would have been crazy. This Alfie – he treated you right?’
‘Yes. He was a perfect gentleman. It hurt him badly when I told him I couldn’t marry him after all – I still feel jolly guilty about that. But oh, Sam, I didn’t love him. It would have been wrong to marry him even if you were dead, I think. So it all worked out for the best.’
I squeezed her hand again. Christ, how close we’d come to losing one another.
Suddenly, she jumped. ‘Oh!’
‘What’s wrong?’
She laughed. ‘Nothing. The baby’s moving again. Here.’
She placed my hand on her bump. I felt a faint fluttering under my palm. My heart leapt. ‘Holy smokes.’ Up until that point, it hadn’t quite sunk in that I was gonna be a father, but now it hit me properly for the first time.
Christ.
‘Are you all right?’ Ruby asked, frowning slightly when she felt me stiffen.
‘Yeah.’ I let out a shaky breath. ‘It’s just—’
‘What?’ she said gently.
I let out another breath. ‘I hope I can be the kind of father this kid deserves. That is, better than Kirk.’
‘Oh, Sam, of course you will be. Look at what you’ve done for Meggie. You’re nothing like him, and you never will be.’
‘I goddamn hope not.’
‘I know not.’ Her expression was alight with conviction, and in that moment I loved her more than ever. I promise I’ll do the best I can, for both of you, I told her inside my head. And I’ll keep doing it until the day I die.
‘If it’s a girl, I want to call her Ellen Rose,’ Ruby said. ‘That was my mother’s name.’
‘Sure.’ I thought for a moment. ‘And if it’s a boy, can we call it James David? Jimmy for short, maybe?’
‘Of course. Is Jimmy—’
‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been able to find out what happened to him. And, well, you know about Davy.’
‘This damn war’s taken so much from everyone,’ Ruby said pensively, pressing her lips together.
‘Not everyone. It didn’t take you. Or me. Or Meggie or Stanley or Vera.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ She gently squeezed my hand. ‘I’ve been writing to the Red Cross, trying to find out where you were – perhaps we can ask them about Jimmy?’
‘Definitely,’ I said.
Her smile returned, a dimple appearing in her cheek. ‘So, are we still going to get married? Because you owe me a wedding, Sam Archer.’
‘You bet we will! I’ll need to find some work first, though, so I can buy you a proper ring and all.’
‘Oh, Stanley’s sorted all that out already. He’s got a job lined up for you at his office if you… Oops!’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘I think he wanted to tell you about that himself. Don’t let on that you know, will you?’
‘I won’t say a thing.’
I leaned in for another kiss. Then there was a shout from across the square. ‘Sam! Ruby! The tea’s ready!’
Meggie was hanging out of one of the top-floor windows, waving at us.
I laughed. ‘We’d better go in. Once she starts yelling she never stops. She’ll be driving Vera and Stanley nuts.’
I stood and helped Ruby to her feet. With our fingers entwined, we walked back across the street.
THE END