Arrows Of Desire

by Emma Blair

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

When Steve is killed during enemy action, Beth is devastated. They were due to elope to Gretna Green the following week, and their happiness was complete with the news of Beth's pregnancy. But now, alone and unmarried and with a baby on the way, Beth must survive by herself in war-torn Glasgow. When Beth meets handsome Canadian Gene, a friendship begins; for the first time since Steve's death Beth finds happiness. When Gene asks her to marry him and live with him on his farm in Canada, Beth seizes the opportunity of a better life for her and her child. But it doesn't take Beth long to realise that Gene hasn't told her the whole truth and that the farm doesn't belong to just him - his sister Loretta lives there, too. And Loretta makes it very clear that Beth isn't welcome and that she will stop at nothing to get rid of her - even if it comes to murder. Praise for Emma Blair: 'An engaging novel and the characters are endearing - a good holiday read' Historical Novels Review 'All the tragedy and passion you could hope for . . . Brilliant' The Bookseller 'Romantic fiction pure and simple and the best sort - direct, warm and hugely readable. Women's fiction at an excellent level' Publishing News 'Emma Blair explores the complex and difficult nature of human emotions in this passionately written novel' Edinburgh Evening News 'Entertaining romantic fiction' Historical Novels Review '[Emma Blair] is well worth recommending' The Bookseller

Release date: November 17, 2016

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 352

Sample

Beth frowned, then looked up from her midday meal. ‘Do you hear something?’ she asked after a few seconds.

Her brother Roy paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Like what?’

Beth shook her head. ‘It’s gone now, but I could have sworn …’ She trailed off, and addressed herself again to her plate. Dinner was mince and potatoes, one of her favourites, except the mince just hadn’t had the same taste to it since the war started eighteen months ago. It was far more fatty and gristly then it had been. Still, she was thankful the family had it at all, meat being a commodity that was becoming scarcer and scarcer with every passing week.

‘I can hear it now, a sort of thumping noise,’ declared Cissie, Beth and Roy’s mother, the third and final person at the table.

Beth was intrigued. Crossing to the window, she raised it and leaned out.

The bitter March wind stung her face, while behind her Roy exclaimed as a draught swirled round the room. There it was again, a thumping noise carried by the wind from what seemed a fair way off.

That’s odd, she mused: it sounded like blasting she’d once heard. Perhaps some old buildings were being blown up?

‘Shut that bloody window!’ Roy complained.

‘Come here and see what you make of it,’ Beth called to him over her shoulder.

‘I’m not hanging out of a window like some old gossip,’ Roy retorted. Snorting, he pushed his plate away and began to light a cigarette.

Suddenly a new sound intruded, and the steady drone of a plane’s engines filled the room, building up to such an intensity that Cissie, whose hearing had always been acute, was forced to clap her hands over her ears.

‘What bloody madman’s that!’ Roy shouted angrily, coming to his feet. A few quick strides brought him alongside Beth and then he too was leaning out of the window.

The plane appeared over the surrounding rooftops, so low Beth felt she could’ve reached up and touched it. Green, with a white underbelly, it roared overhead while both she and Roy gaped. Then it was gone, the sound of its engines gradually receding.

Beth knew now what that far-off thumping noise was. Glasgow was being bombed for the first time ever.

Roy pulled himself back into the room to stare at his mother. ‘A Jerry. I saw the bastard’s markings plain as day.’

Cissie bit her lip. ‘They’ll be going for the docks.’

‘Aye, that’ll be it right enough,’ Roy muttered thoughtfully.

‘What’ll we do?’ Cissie asked him, for with her husband Andrew away in the army, Roy was acting head of the family.

‘What we’ve been told to do when this happened, go down to the shelter,’ Roy replied, for the city had long known it would eventually be a bombing target. The only question had been when. Cissie rose from the table and hurried through to the hallway for her coat.

‘I’d better get back to the hospital. They might need me,’ Beth declared. She was a trainee nurse at the nearby Victoria Infirmary.

‘The hell with that!’ Roy retorted. ‘You’ll take Ma down to the shelter and stay there with her until this raid’s over.’

‘But it’s my duty …’ Beth started to say, only to be cut short.

‘It’s your duty to look after Ma, not to mention staying alive. You’ll do as I say, Beth, and no buts about it.’

Beth glared at her older brother. It infuriated her when he treated her as a child and not the nineteen-year-old she was.

Cissie hurried back into the room carrying Beth’s cape. ‘Roy’s right. You could well get yourself killed going out on the streets when there’s a raid in progress. No one at the hospital would thank you for that, I’m sure.’

Grudgingly Beth acquiesced, knowing them to be right. Suddenly the air raid siren burst into life, its ululating wail originating from the local ARP post.

‘They’re a bit sodding late.’ Roy gave a short barking laugh. ‘Typical!’

On the landing outside they ran into old Mrs McGurk from next door. She lived alone, her man being long dead and her family now grown up with homes of their own. Cissie linked arms with her, and together they clattered downstairs with Beth and Roy bringing up the rear.

Mrs Carmichael, who stayed at the bottom left hand side of the close, or communal stairway, was standing at the door crying while Mrs Todd, another neighbour in the close, tried to comfort her.

‘It’s her weans at school. She’s worried sick about them,’ Mrs Todd explained.

‘They’ll be all right. The teachers will have taken them to the basement which, I can assure you, having seen it myself when my two were pupils, is a far safer place for them than our shelter. You have my word on that, hen,’ Cissie told her.

Mrs Carmichael’s tear-stained face brightened a little. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said huskily.

‘There’s a Primus and fresh water in the shelter, so let’s away in and brew ourselves a cuppa,’ Mrs Todd proposed.

‘Good idea!’ exclaimed Mrs McGurk, who’d never been known to turn down a cup of tea and a natter. She led the way to the back green where the brick and concrete shelter was situated.

Beth was about to follow her mother and the others when she realised that Roy was making for the front of the close and the street beyond. ‘Where are you off to?’ she demanded.

‘Work. Where do you think?’

‘But what about the raid?’

A stubborn look settled on his face. ‘No damn Jerry’s going to get me into a shelter. That’s for you womenfolk.’

Beth just had to laugh. ‘It’s not all right for me to get killed, but it is for you. Is that it?’

‘It’s a male thing, lass. Can you understand that?’

‘You’re an awfy man,’ Beth replied, shaking her head, for although she often found her brother exasperating in the extreme, she also greatly admired him.

‘Away with you, I’ll be fine. Only the good die young and I’m certainly not one of those.’

‘Well, that’s true enough,’ she agreed.

He shook his fist at her in mock anger. Then, striding out into the street, he disappeared from view.

In the back green Beth paused to listen, but the wind had shifted so she could no longer hear the thumping sounds. High in the sky she could make out two tiny specks that were certainly aeroplanes, but she had no idea to which side they belonged. Opening the shelter’s door she slipped inside, blinking at the sudden change from bright daylight to soft candlelight.

The shelter was in two sections, the partition being a brick wall running down the middle with a hole in its centre which allowed people to pass from one section to the other. Each section had its own entrance door.

Beth’s section was supposed to cater for the three flats, or houses as they were always called, up her side of the close, the other section for the opposite side. But in practice, air raid drills having been a regular occurrence during the past year, the families tended to use whichever section they found themselves in.

Cissie, Mrs McGurk, Mrs Carmichael and Mrs Todd were sitting on boxes round a Primus which Cissie was coaxing alight. Mrs McGurk, as was her wont, was chattering away nineteen to the dozen. It was gloomy, spooky almost, inside the shelter, with shadows flickering on the ceiling and walls. It was also extremely cold, so Beth was glad of her thick nurse’s cape.

‘Tea up in a minute or two,’ Cissie informed her as she joined the huddled group.

Unfortunately, no one had thought to bring milk, but cups, spoons and sugar were on hand and these Mrs Todd now set out. The tea when poured was thick and strong, and once sugared was absolutely delicious. Beth was raising her cup for a first sip when a curly head was stuck through the hole in the partition. The head belonged to Edgar Martin, eldest son of the family who lived opposite the Carmichaels.

‘Is that tea we smell?’ he enquired.

‘No, it’s just your imagination, son,’ Mrs McGurk instantly retorted, causing Mrs Todd to snigger.

‘Och, don’t be such a tease, Edna. After all, it’s not as though he’s a laddie still. He’s a piper in the army now, don’t forget,’ said Cissie. And indeed, Edgar was in the uniform of the Glasgow Royals which he’d joined six months previously.

‘Just me having a wee bit fun. No offence meant.’ Mrs McGurk smiled at Edgar, who replied that none had been taken.

It was true that for a moment Mrs McGurk had forgotten that Edgar was all grown up. She’d thought of him then, as she often did, as the wee boy who used to whoop up and down the close playing cowboys and Indians. And who’d once – his father had leathered his backside for it – put a handful of stink bombs through her letter box, the smell from which, despite repeated applications of disinfectant, had lingered for months afterwards.

‘There are some cups through there. Bring them here and I’ll brew up a fresh pot for you,’ Cissie told Edgar.

‘That’s awful kind of you, Mrs Somerville,’ Edgar beamed in reply, and withdrew his head back into the other section.

When the fresh pot had masked, Cissie poured, then told Beth to put the cups on to a tray and take them through.

Beth discovered Edgar sitting round a sputtering candle with three young men his own age, all of whom were in the uniform of the Royals. The four of them rose at her approach.

There were several other neighbours in that section, and they were also treated to a cuppa. Beth was about to make her way back to her mother when Edgar asked if she’d sit with them for a moment or two as he’d like her to meet his pals, all of whom were in the band with him.

Jacko was tiny, even for a Glaswegian, with flaming red hair and a long pointed nose. He spoke with a very thick guttural accent which placed him as coming from one of the really rough working class areas.

‘And this is Teddy Ramsay. He and I were in the Boys’ Brigade together and joined the Royals within a week of one another,’ Edgar informed Beth, introducing her to the second young man.

Teddy solemnly shook Beth by the hand, but didn’t say anything. The shy type, she thought.

The third young man was called Ron, and there was certainly nothing shy about him. ‘You’re a right smasher,’ he declared, which caused Beth to laugh, and Edgar to frown warningly at him.

‘Watch that one, he’s quite the ladies’ man. Wherever he goes he leaves a trail of broken hearts behind,’ Jacko grinned.

‘Not true!’ Ron protested.

‘Och, away with you, you’re known throughout the regiment for it,’ persisted Jacko.

Ron pulled a long face. ‘Honestly, it’s a case of give a dog a bad name,’ he assured Beth.

‘I doubt that,’ she replied with a chuckle.

Jacko produced a packet of Pasha. ‘Would you like a ciggie, Beth?’ he asked.

She stared at the packet, as though making a decision. Finally she nodded. ‘Thank you, don’t mind if I do.’

As Jacko helped her to a light, Edgar declared in astonishment, ‘When did you start that? All the years I’ve known you I’ve never seen you with a cigarette before.’

Beth smiled sheepishly. ‘In actual fact I’ve been smoking for a while, but I have to be careful. My brother Roy would give me what for if he ever caught me at it. He thinks smoking and drinking are unladylike.’

‘I’ll bet he smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish himself,’ Teddy Ramsay commented, speaking for the first time.

‘That’s right. How did you know?’

Teddy smiled at her. ‘I’ve noticed in the past that those who lay down hard and fast rules for others are usually the worst offenders themselves.’

This Teddy was a thinker, Beth mused. She liked that.

‘How’s your da? Have you heard recently?’ Edgar asked.

Beth shook her head. ‘The last letter we got was over two months ago, and that said precious little after the censor had got through with it. He was well at the time, which is the main thing, and somewhere tropical. At least that was the impression we got.’

Edgar explained to the others. ‘Her da’s with the Black Watch.’

‘They’re a good bunch, the Watch,’ Ron enthused. ‘And they’ve got a damn fine band.’

‘Aye, that’s right enough,’ Jacko confirmed.

Beth stared off into the darkness, thinking about her da. He was relatively young still, only forty-three. A fine figure of a man with exceptionally broad shoulders that came from humping dozens of coal bags every day, the job he’d been doing since leaving school. He’d been a skinny runt then, he’d often told her, but a couple of years on the coal cart had soon altered that. She and he were close in that special way daughters often were with their fathers.

It worried her silly to think of him off fighting, a subject consciously referred to as little as possible at home. Da had gone off to war, and Da would come home again when it was all over. That’s the way it would be.

‘A penny for them?’ Teddy asked.

Beth came out of her reverie to regard Teddy slightly quizzically. He was different from the others, more mature somehow, more in control of himself. ‘I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular,’ she lied. Then, coming to her feet, she said, ‘I’d better get back. It’s been nice meeting and talking to you, lads. I’ve enjoyed it.’

Edgar was opening his mouth to reply when suddenly there was a terrific explosion. Beth screamed as she was thrown backwards and landed heavily on the concrete floor. She was vaguely aware that the shelter had been plunged into total darkness – the candles must have been blown out. Brick dust filled the air.

Confusion reigned as she groggily struggled into a kneeling position. Must get to Ma, she told herself. Coughing and choking, she stumbled in the direction of the connecting hole. At last her groping hands found it, and she was through.

‘Ma? Are you all right?’ she called.

‘I’m over here.’

Beth sighed with relief, and made her way towards her mother’s voice.

‘What in God’s name happened?’ demanded Mrs McGurk.

‘We must have been bombed,’ replied Mrs Todd.

Beth reached Cissie, and they fell into one another’s arms.

‘Here we are!’ cried Mrs Todd jubilantly, and a match flared into life. A very dishevelled Mrs Todd was revealed holding the match in one hand, a candle in the other.

‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed Cissie when the light from the candle lit up their section.

Mrs Carmichael was lying prostrate, a trickle of blood flowing from her mouth, her open eyes already glazing. Beth knew even before she touched her that Mrs Carmichael was dead.

‘Is she …’ whispered Mrs McGurk.

Beth nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.

Mrs McGurk sobbed while Mrs Todd chewed a finger. ‘Those poor weans of hers,’ Cissie choked.

‘And her poor husband,’ added Mrs McGurk.

‘Beth, come quickly!’ shouted Edgar, appearing in the hole.

Instantly Beth was back on her feet and hurrying towards his outstretched hand.

At first she thought it was Ron who needed her attention, for he was clutching his arm, but when he saw her making for him he shook his head. ‘Never mind me. Have a look at Teddy,’ he said.

Jacko held a candle over Teddy, who was stretched out on the floor, his face the colour of milk. For a dreadful moment Beth thought he too had been killed; then she saw that, mercifully, he was still breathing.

‘I think he hit the wall. At least, he was slumped against it when I pulled him away,’ Jacko volunteered.

‘I need more light,’ Beth said, squatting beside Teddy. Quickly she ran her hands over him, starting with his lower legs and working her way up. She grunted acknowledgement as second and third candles were brought to bear.

As far as she could tell, none of Teddy’s bones were broken, but internally? He would need a proper doctor’s examination to find out about that.

The back of his head was sticky with blood, and he groaned when she lightly touched him there. Glancing up, she found Edgar, Ron and Jacko staring apprehensively at her. To Edgar she said quickly, ‘He needs an ambulance. Run to the telephone kiosk at the end of the street and ring through to the Victoria. Tell them it’s an emergency.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Edgar replied, handing Jacko the candle he was holding.

‘Is anyone else hurt in here?’ Beth called out.

No one was, so Beth turned her attention to Ron. ‘Let’s have a look at that arm of yours then,’ she said.

‘I think it’s broken,’ he muttered.

And he was correct, as Beth’s gently probing fingers soon discovered. ‘A plaster cast for this and you’ll soon be right as rain again,’ she told him.

‘Will it affect my playing?’ he asked anxiously.

‘I shouldn’t think so. Your fingers will be stiff for some time after the cast comes off, as will the arm itself. But exercise will soon cure that.’ Someone had produced a bandage, and as she spoke she was wrapping it round him, binding his arm to his body, which was the best she could do in the circumstances.

Teddy groaned, turning his head sharply to one side and then the other. Beth knelt by his side again and smoothed his brow, which was cold and clammy. She recalled there were some blankets in the shelter somewhere and asked Jacko to find them and bring her one.

When Teddy was tucked up and as comfortable as she could make him she returned to the other section, where she told Cissie that Edgar had gone to call an ambulance for Teddy. Then she shouted through to Jacko to bring another blanket, to cover Mrs Carmichael’s body.

‘Can I go back to my house now?’ asked Mrs Todd who, judging by her expression, had gone into shock.

Beth guided her to a box and sat her down. ‘Not yet, Mrs Todd. None of us must return till the all-clear sounds.’

‘Oh, aye. Aye, of course, that’s right.’ Mrs Todd turned her head away and began to cry.

‘I’ll look after her,’ Cissie offered. Kneeling, she took Mrs Todd in her arms.

Ron appeared in the hole and beckoned to Beth. ‘I’ve just had a dekko outside and guess what? We weren’t bombed at all. It’s a Jerry plane that’s come down and hit the tenements at the back of here. You should see the mess. It’s complete devastation.’

‘Then I must go out there. I’ll be able to help,’ Beth replied at once. Passing again into the other section, she crossed to Teddy, who was still unconscious. She noted that his breathing had become a lot easier, which was a good sign.

‘You stay with Teddy,’ she said to Ron. ‘If his condition changes before the ambulance arrives, come and get me. Don’t worry if he gives the occasional moan or groan, but if his colour alters for the worse, or he starts to thrash about, then come for me as quickly as you can.’

‘Understood.’ He nodded.

‘And what about me?’ Jacko demanded.

‘If it’s as bad as Ron says out there they’ll need every pair of hands they can get.’

‘Right!’ Jacko acknowledged. Together, he and Beth headed for the section door.

Outside, Beth led the way round the bin enclosures to the palings separating the back greens from those of the tenements that backed on to them. Only the palings weren’t there any more. Nor were the tenements.

‘Oh, my God!’ breathed Beth, staring at the smoking, and in some parts blazing, piles of rubble. The German plane had hit the line of buildings lengthways, bringing down the lot of them.

‘Look!’ exclaimed Jacko, pointing.

It was an amazing sight. Right in the middle of the rubble stood a fireplace with a pair of china dogs on either side of the mantelpiece. It was incredible to think that those fragile ornaments had survived the impact while all else around them had been reduced to smithereens.

In what had been the living room of a family named Walker were the twisted remains of the plane’s fuselage. They could see the tailpiece a little further off.

‘Heinkel 111, I think,’ Jacko commented.

Firemen were already on the scene, as were ARP wardens. The latter were frantically tearing at a mound of brick, metal and jagged chunks of concrete. Beth and Jacko hurried over to them, and a warden said to Jacko, ‘Get stuck in here, Jim. There are folk underneath.’

Beth worked alongside Jacko, heaving away the smaller bits of debris, and they were told that this particular mound of rubble hadn’t been part of the tenements but rather one of the shelters belonging to them. It had been blown apart by the explosion when the plane’s fuel tank had gone up.

Beth glanced across at the shelter she’d been in, and shuddered. Rotten athlete though she was, even she could have hit it with a thrown tennis ball. Why, if the German plane had been even … The picture conjured up in her mind didn’t bear dwelling on.

Jacko pulled a block of concrete away to expose a piece of severed leg. Moments later a middle-aged woman was revealed, her face covered in blood.

Beth knelt by the woman and unbuckled her uniform belt. She tied a tourniquet round the stump, then called out for something with which to do the same on the woman’s other leg, which was open to the bone behind the knee. A warden, looking as though he might throw up at any moment, handed her his tie.

Off in the distance a bell started to clang, announcing the approach of another fire engine.

The woman with the severed leg was a goner, Beth was sure. She was mumbling to herself, her voice cracked and filled with pain, and bending over her Beth could hear ‘Harry … Harry … Harry …’ repeated over and over again.

‘Here, nurse!’ shouted one of the wardens.

Beth recognised the baby as wee Sandy Taggart. His mother’s name was Alison, and his father Alex was away serving in the Navy. Sandy was smiling and sucking his thumb, not a mark on him.

The second fire engine arrived and with it a dozen more firemen. Although the all-clear had not yet sounded, other men were appearing out of adjacent shelters to lend their muscle to the excavations.

Edgar ran up to say an ambulance was on its way. ‘Jesus wept!’ he exclaimed, gazing about him in awe. It was he who, a few minutes later, uncovered the body of Alison Taggart, who’d been crushed to death beneath a slab of concrete. Eventually the bodies of fourteen more people were found.

When she returned to the woman with the severed leg, Beth discovered that she’d passed on. Beth had seen her round and about often enough, but had never known her name. Poor Harry – no doubt he was the woman’s husband; she was wearing a wedding ring.

A retired bus driver called Mr Reid was the only adult survivor of the blown-up shelter. When Beth examined him all he could talk about was his favourite pipe, lost and presumably smashed among the debris.

‘Twenty years and more I’ve had that briar, twenty years and more!’ he said to Beth, eyes glistening with anger behind their rheum.

Apart from a few lacerations he was fine, but Beth insisted he would have to go to hospital anyway, just to be on the safe side.

‘Twenty years and more!’ he called after her, shaking his head in despair.

Beth held Sandy Taggart in the crook of her arm, where he gurgled contentedly. She stared up at the sky, but it was devoid of planes; nor could she hear the far-off thumping noise of the bombing. The raid must still be going on, she told herself, as the all-clear still hadn’t been given. Where is that ambulance, she wondered, and as if in answer suddenly heard the distinctive clamour of its bell.

She stopped a warden and asked if there were any people buried underneath the tenement rubble. He replied that he didn’t think so, enquiries at the other shelters serving the tenements having indicated that everyone had gone there when the air raid warning sounded. Still, they would go through the rubble as best they could to confirm that was the case.

Beth wasn’t worried about Cissie. Her ma would cope all right. The best thing she could do now was to get back to the Victoria as soon as possible, which she would do travelling in the ambulance.

When it arrived, Jacko led two of the men to the shelter where Teddy was, and a few minutes later they reappeared carrying Teddy on a stretcher. Jacko was still with them, as were Ron and Mrs Todd.

Beth, carrying Sandy Taggart, was the last to climb into the vehicle before the doors slammed shut behind her. Seconds later, its bell once more clamouring, the ambulance jolted forward.

They’d almost reached the hospital before she realised she’d forgotten to say goodbye to Jacko.

Just after tea ten days later, Beth was in the bathroom washing her hair, after which she intended to have a good long soak in the bath.

She was thinking about Miss Kettle, the new ward sister, already nicknamed Genghis Khan by the girls, when she heard a knock on the front door. She presumed it would be one of the neighbours, who were forever popping in to have a natter with Cissie, or borrow something, or both. It was a surprise to her therefore when, a few seconds later, Roy shouted from the hallway, ‘Beth, you’ve got a visitor!’

Must be Eileen McCallum from two closes down returning the book she’d lent her, she thought. ‘Is it Eileen?’ she shouted back.

‘No, a chap called Teddy Ramsay. Says he’s here to thank you for what you did when that Jerry plane came down.’

Teddy Ramsay! Now there was a turn-up for the book. She’d visited him once when he was in the Victoria, but the second time she’d gone to see how he was getting along he’d already been discharged. ‘I’ll be through in a couple of minutes,’ she called, and began furiously rinsing.

She towelled her hair as dry as she could, then combed it. Rats’ tails, she thought angrily. Damn the man for coming at such an inconvenient time. She had no makeup on, and was in her dressing gown with hardly a stitch underneath. She looked awful.

Poking her head out into the hallway, she heard Roy talking in the living room, presumably to Teddy. A quick peep showed her that the living room door was drawn to so she wouldn’t be seen going past. Well, that was something, at least.

Tiptoeing, she reached her bedroom and hurried inside. She was wriggling into her slip when Roy called out, ‘Beth, where are you? What’s keeping you? Mr Ramsay’s waiting.’

There was a hint of laughter in his voice which betrayed the fact that he was deliberately teasing her. ‘Bugger!’ she swore softly. Sounding as casual as she could, she called back, ‘I’ll be right there. Keep Mr Ramsay entertained, will you?’

There was no time for a proper make-up, so she made do with only lipstick. Quickly she smoothed down her dress and checked that the seams of her last pair of stockings were straight.

Teddy rose to his feet when she entered the living room, although Roy stayed firmly in his chair. Knowing her brother, she’d have been flabbergasted if he’d done otherwise.

‘I hope you don’t mind me dropping by like this but I wanted to thank you again for what you did for me that day.’ Teddy smiled.

‘Your thank you at the hospital was enough,’ Beth replied, her tone frosty. They stared at one another, and it was Teddy who dropped his gaze first. Now why had she done that? Beth wondered. For on her part it had been more of a glare than a stare.

‘Och, sit down, the pair of you, you’re cluttering up the place,’ Cissie piped up from the rear of the room where she was curled up on the couch knitting.

Teddy sat, then immediately got up again. Crossing to where he had left his coat, he reached into a pocket to produce a box of chocolates. ‘Just a wee token,’ he murmured to Beth as he handed it to her.

‘Are those real? I haven’t seen real chocolates for God knows how long!’ Cissie exclaimed.

‘Oh, they’re real all right,’ Teddy assured her.

‘I don’t know where you got them from but they must have cost you all your ration coupons,’ said Beth, touched by the gesture, but also, for some reason she couldn’t understand, angered by it.

‘Not to worry about that. I don’t have a sweet tooth myself,’ Teddy replied.

Roy realised that Teddy’s glass was empty. ‘You’ll have another dram,’ he declared, lurching to his feet. ‘Mr Ramsay brought a half-bottle with him as well,’ he explained to Beth, refilling Teddy’s glass, then his own.

‘How’s the head?’ Beth asked Teddy.

He grinned ruefully and rubbed the back of it. ‘I’m still getting headaches, but they’re not nearly as bad as they were. The doctor said they could go on for some months.’

Beth was desperate for a cigarette, but was unable to light up because of Roy’s presence. ‘You could easily have suffered a very bad fracture, or split your skull wide open. And if part of the skull had been pushed inward to puncture the brain itself, well …’ She trailed off and raised her eyebrows.

‘Dead,’ Teddy stated.

‘Or worse,’ she said.

‘How so?’ Roy queried, frowning.

‘He could’ve been reduced to a vegetable.’ Beth spelt it out.

‘Yes, I was lucky,’ Teddy acknowledged in a low voice.

‘Beth mentioned you when she got in later that night. How long were you unconscious for?’ Roy asked.

‘A little over two hours. I had them worried, apparently, but then I just woke up and that was that.’

‘So why the headaches?’

Beth explained. ‘They often go with concussion. Real blinders which gradually, as the doctors told Mr Ramsay, fade away.’

‘What’s all this Mr Ramsay nonsense? Call me Teddy, please?’ He smiled.

It was Roy who’d started the Mr Ramsay business and she’d carried on with it because she hadn’t wanted to seem over-familiar. ‘If you like,’ she said, and popped a chocolate into her mouth, th