Truly, Madly, Deeply

Her three children, two sons and a daughter, all married or with partners, were all keen on the idea of a paid-for holiday in a luxury holiday home. ‘Lovely to have built-in baby-sitters,’ said one son. ‘Good to have time to catch up with the sibs,’ said another.

Isobel made the booking. Now she would live the dream. She would become charismatic, beautiful, in spite of her nearly sixty years. She wouldn’t just be ‘good old Mum’.

What she hadn’t envisaged when she’d been searching for the perfect house was the amount of cooking and washing up a family holiday with grandchildren entailed –all in a kitchen a lot less well organised than her own. It was not so much ‘living the dream’ as ‘living the washing up’. What had seemed such a good idea in January, when she booked the house, now seemed a terrible idea. As for her transformation into the heroine of one of those books, she felt more like the faithful family housekeeper than her employer.

The men all loved cooking –that wasn’t a problem –except they used every implement in the house and while they sloshed water around quite a bit, they somehow never actually cleared up. Considering they had cooked this seemed sort of OK, but it was the same when she cooked. Her husband wiped half washed saucepans with clean tea towels, which meant very soon none of the tea towels were clean.

She realised sadly that she was not a matriarch, she was a woman who was a member of a book group, shopped in Waitrose and had to travel with her own pillows. And while, during the holiday at least, she had some trappings of the Yummy Mummy –the pale marks on the shoulder of every garment, the faint odour of sour milk, and Babybels loose in her handbag ready to feed a hungry toddler at a moment’s notice –she didn’t feel remotely yummy. And she didn’t even have a wicked past to look back on either. She’d married young, had children and stayed married. Her life was completely free of delicious memories of past loves. What had always seemed something to be admired now seemed plain boring.

At least the holiday was going well. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Days on the beach with the children, with Grandpa willing to go rock pooling, buy ice creams and carry small children for miles. And later, meals cooked and served at the huge table with ample quantities of wine. Yet somehow she still found herself doing most of the donkeywork. Everyone was happy to fill the dishwasher but no one wanted to empty it, carrying the clean things to a cupboard across the kitchen. It was a job Isobel hated too but still found herself doing it several times a day.

One morning, when she’d got up early to do the washing up that the men had sworn they’d do, she went on strike halfway through. She made herself a cup of tea and took the visitors’ book out onto the terrace. The sun was shining and no one else was up. She felt entitled to a few moments not looking after people. These moments were hers.

Earlier, when they’d first arrived at the house and were reading the instructions to the Aga and the telephone number of the woman who ‘did’ plus the way to the nearest beach, which was several miles through traffic-filled lanes, Isobel had looked at the visitors’ book. In it had been a name she’d recognised. A man she’d known briefly and rather fancied –Leo Stark –had obviously stayed at the same house with his family. They’d both been married when they met but she was fairly sure there’d been some sort of spark.

On impulse she went to find her phone and emailed him. After all, there were no other ways she could rebel that wouldn’t impinge unpleasantly on someone else. This was a little private thing that would go no further.

‘Dear Leo, I’m sure you won’t remember me, Isobel Dunbar, but we met at the McCreadys’ once. We’re staying in the house where you stayed last year. Such a coincidence, I had to get in touch.’

Feeling very slightly naughty, and so cheered up, she went back into the house to finish the clearing she had abandoned.

Very much to her surprise she had a reply from Leo. She sneaked a look, feeling wonderfully teenage, while supervising the two-year-old’s porridge consumption.

‘Isobel! Of course I remember you! How could I forget? And by an amazing coincidence we’re down here too! Do you think you could manage a lunch? Not the whole family, just us?’

She was so shocked and delighted she couldn’t even think of replying. She just held her glorious –and guilty –secret to herself. She whizzed through the chores and even made up some batter for pancakes for breakfast. She almost ran down the lane to the little shop that stocked everything a holidaymaker might require and was open almost continuously. She panted back up the hill clutching croissants and maple syrup.

‘Mum!’ said her daughter, a plump baby on her hip. ‘You didn’t get any nappies while you were in the shop, did you? We’re nearly out.’

‘Sorry, darling, I didn’t know about the nappies and just thought it would be fun to have pancakes.’ The adrenalin shot of the email protected her from resentment. ‘Now, shall I take Immi so you can start frying?’

All day she was superwoman. She packed a picnic of homemade pizzas and sent the whole lot off to the beach. ‘I’ll meet you at lunchtime. There are just a few things I want to do here!’ she said, as she waved them off.

Then she ran to her phone. ‘It’s as if I have a lover!’ she told herself, slightly breathless, as she switched it on. The thought of having a lover was like being submerged by a huge wave and then being lifted up by the same wave. She couldn’t decide if the feeling of exhilaration matched the feeling of utter doom. It was while she was feeling ridiculously happy she wrote a quick reply: ‘That should be possible. When did you have in mind? Not today,’ she added hurriedly.

She doubted if Leo had had to tidy the kitchen, go shopping and make pancakes –not to mention the picnic –in order to have a few moments to send an email, but was very pleased to hear the ping of a reply while she was clearing up sodden towels from the shower. It was him. He mentioned a pub in a little village a reassuring distance from the house: ‘Tomorrow any good? We’re going back at the end of the week.’

‘Lovely,’ she wrote back, not giving herself time to think further. If she passed up this opportunity it wouldn’t happen and she’d regret it for ever. ‘One o’clock?’

Feeling as guilty as if she had made a pact with the devil, Isobel made her way to the beach, bringing chilled bottles, extra cardies and some sunscreen with her.

‘Oh great, beer,’ said one of her sons, taking a couple of bottles out of her bag, which had been very heavy.

‘That’s fine, darling,’ Isobel muttered. ‘It was no trouble bringing it at all…’

The following morning Isobel got everyone’s attention at breakfast time –as far as one could, given that they all had separate distractions. ‘I’m going out for the day,’ she said. ‘I’ll be taking the car.’

‘What do you want to do that for?’ asked her husband, utterly bemused.

‘Oh you know. I just need a bit of time on my own. “Me time”.’ She bit her lip to stop herself adding ‘because I’m worth it.’

‘Will you be back to help with bath-time?’ asked one daughter-in-law. ‘You promised to read Otto a story!’

‘I’ll be back in plenty of time for that.’

‘This is a bit out of left-field, isn’t it?’ said a son.

‘Yes, and what about supper?’ asked her daughter. ‘What are we having?’

‘Why don’t you decide?’ she asked. She turned to leave but before she had got out of the room her daughter stopped her.

‘Don’t you think you ought to at least wash your hair first?’

Isobel laughed. ‘Oh no, my hair is just fine.’

She managed not to spray gravel as she drove away, feeling as if the family car had turned into a getaway vehicle. In her Cath Kidson shopper, like stolen goods, were as many of her clothes that she felt she could get away with taking, and her entire make-up kit. Her holiday packing had not included control pants or a sexy dress but she had bought a couple of new tops and some new linen trousers that were quite flattering. She knew of a public lavatory with quite big cubicles, she’d do her changing there.

Her hair would be sorted by a quick wash and blow-dry at a local salon. It couldn’t go too wrong and if it did, she could gussy it up with some products that the local Boots would provide. She was going to enjoy every minute of this.

But in between the wonderful excitement came troughs of guilt. She was struggling into her new trousers in the public convenience, giggling at the ridiculousness of it all, when she suddenly pictured her husband. What would happen if he found out? She suddenly felt sick. It would be too awful. He would be so hurt. Her mouth went dry and for a moment she couldn’t move. After a few minutes she collected herself and carried on getting dressed in a more sombre manner. She walked out of the cubicle in two minds. Should she cancel?

A glance in the mirror decided her. She was looking good. Well, as good as she could look given the circumstances. The local salon had done a good job on her hair and her new clothes were nice. She would meet an old friend for lunch, she would do a bit of shopping and then go back in time to bathe the babies and cook supper. After she’d had her few hours of intrigue would she go back to her humdrum role of wife and mother and not care that no one seemed to appreciate her, let alone treat her as the sort of goddess who starred in her favourite sort of reading material. She would have her secret, even if it was a very small one.

She felt so sick with nerves when she arrived at the pub that she nearly turned round and went back to the holiday house. But she knew she’d regret it if she did that –and it was only lunch, for God’s sake. She and Leo might wonder what on earth they had ever seen in each other. She would more than likely go home wondering what on earth she’d gone to all that trouble for –but she had to find out.

Leo was waiting for her, watching the door for her to come in, and stood up the moment she appeared. She recognised him instantly, and going by the smile on his face he recognised her too.

They hugged briefly, and then Isobel sat down. Her knees were shaking.

‘What can I get you?’ Leo asked.

‘A white wine spritzer,’ she said. She needed at least some alcohol to get her through this. And if she stuffed herself with sandwiches when she was alone again, after the salad she would have in front of Leo, she should be OK to drive back.

‘So, Isobel. This is so nice.’ His words were bland but the expression in his eyes was anything but. She may have forgotten some of the signs but she was fairly sure she saw a twinkle of admiration. ‘I’ve often wondered what would have happened if we hadn’t both been married when we met.’

Isobel took a sip of her drink –she wouldn’t have been able to talk if she hadn’t. ‘But we were both married and still are.’

He smiled ruefully and nodded. ‘So there’s no point in suggesting we get a room then?’

She started to laugh. It was so ridiculous. He laughed too and then they were both chuckling away. Isobel knew it was a release of tension –for her anyway –but whatever the reason it was lovely.

‘All I can say,’ he said, when they had recovered themselves, ‘is that your husband is a very lucky man. Now what would you like for lunch?’

When Isobel drove away from the pub she was on a cloud. Her self-esteem had rocketed and she felt powerful and attractive. Nothing untoward had happened during the lunch but she knew Leo had fancied her. She may not be a matriarch, adored by all, but she now had a secret, even if it wasn’t really a wicked one.

Rather to her surprise, the family was all in the kitchen when she arrived. As they all had slightly odd expressions she wondered for one ghastly moment if she had been discovered.

‘Mum!’ said her daughter, coming forward and kissing her. ‘You look great! Got your hair done?’ Isobel nodded. ‘Which is good because we’ve got a plan!’

‘We’re going out for dinner,’ said her husband.

Isobel beamed, her happiness and relief when she realised she hadn’t been discovered having lunch with another man. ‘How lovely!’

‘We realised you’ve spent most of the holiday looking after us, so today I’m taking you out,’ her husband said. ‘And Adam has kindly offered to take us and pick us up so we can drink.’ He smiled at her and she recognised the man she had once been madly in love with.

All she really wanted from life was with her right now. She didn’t really need a secret or a luscious Cornish house.

‘Lovely, I’ll go and get ready then.’

‘The table’s not booked until seven,’ said her daughter. ‘You can still help with bath time…’

‘I’d love to,’ she said.

True Love

Maureen Lee

MAUREEN LEE has had twenty-seven novels published, most of them family sagas, one of which won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2000. In an earlier life she sold about 150 short stories to magazines all over the world. Her musical play, When Adam Delved and Eve Span, had a three-week run at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester. She is married to Richard and has three grown up sons. After writing, her main interests are politics and reading other authors’ books.

True Love

The sun came out, flooding the room with brilliant light. Although his eyes were closed, the man turned restlessly on the bed and uttered a little moan. The sudden light had disturbed him. His wife rose and hurriedly pulled the curtains together, then returned to her chair beside the bed. She smoothed his brow.

‘There, there, darling,’ she murmured.

‘Where are we?’ he asked in a deep young voice that surprised her.

‘Why, at home, Robert,’ she replied. ‘On the farm. It’s morning, the sun’s just appeared, and two of your grandsons have already telephoned to ask how you are.’

His son, their only child, had enquired merely from a sense of duty. He’d been a strict, unforgiving father, not at all well-loved. But with his grandchildren he’d been openly fond and caring.

He was old, in his ninetieth year, and he was dying. Everybody knew that, his wife most of all. She’d loved him since they’d first met: she had been sixteen and he more than twice her age. Her father had been a parish councillor and he’d come to the house about a planning matter. He was a farmer; sternly handsome, smiling rarely. He’d proposed within six months and she’d accepted gladly.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said, not that he would understand. He’d heard nothing for days apart from internal voices he would occasionally converse with, voices that belonged to people she had never known. She left the dining room and went into the kitchen –he’d been brought downstairs and the dining room had been turned into a bedroom.

Through the window, the modern bungalow –built for their son when he took over the management of the farm –throbbed with life. Her great grandchildren, two little girls, were spending the summer there, and were already playing on a swing in the garden. Dorothy, her daughter-in-law, was hanging washing on the line and Francis, the ‘Crown Prince’ as Robert sometimes called him in a rare moment of humour, was staring at the house where he’d been born as if wondering how his father was today. At some time this morning, he’d come over and enquire about his health.

She was tempted to wave, but Francis would come immediately out of a sense of duty and she would sooner he didn’t. He would argue that his father should be in hospital.

‘He loathes hospitals,’ she would insist. ‘He’d far sooner be at home.’

She made tea and took two digestive biscuits out of the tin –she’d make herself a proper breakfast later –and took them into the dining room where, to her utter astonishment, her husband was singing an old war song.

‘There’ll be bluebirds over…’ he sang, followed by unrecognisable murmurings.

‘The white cliffs of Dover,’ his wife offered. Then she sang the line in full, ‘There’ll be bluebirds over, the white cliffs of Dover.’

She was even more astonished when he opened his eyes and smiled at her, a brilliant, open, truly gorgeous smile that was totally unfamiliar.

‘Hello,’ she said, taken aback, overwhelmed by the feeling of aching sadness that she would shortly lose him.

‘Hello,’ Robert MacEvoy exclaimed, almost exactly seventy years earlier. It was late September, the war was just over a year old –it had only been predicted to last six months. He’d just woken from his afternoon nap in the hospital of an RAF camp on the Essex coast and she was standing beside his bed with a cup of tea. She wore a blue and white uniform. A new nurse!

She laughed and put the tea on his bedside cabinet. ‘Hello,’ she cried, adding, ‘You’ve got a lovely smile.’

‘You’ve got a lovely everything.’ She was outstandingly pretty, with dark curly hair and eyes the colour of forget-me-nots. He was twenty-one and had never spoken so frankly to a girl before –flirtatiously almost. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Moira. Moira Graham.’ She made a face, squinting her eyes and wrinkling her nose. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Robert. People call me Rob.’

‘Well, I shall call you Robert, if you don’t mind.’

‘I don’t mind a bit. Will you be at the dance tonight?’ Another first for him; virtually asking a girl for a date.

‘I will indeed. Shall I save the last dance for you?’ She spoke in a deep sultry voice like Marlene Dietrich while fluttering her eyelashes.

He nodded. ‘As well as the first and all the dances in between.’

‘There’s just one thing, Robert,’ she said.

‘And what’s that, Moira?’

‘Have you forgotten you have a broken leg? It’s why you’re in hospital.’

He looked down at his feet protruding from under the blanket. The right one was heavily plastered, leaving only his toes bare. His ankle was also broken and his knee shattered.

‘I hadn’t forgotten, no. I thought we could sit the dances out. You can take me in my wheelchair.’

She looked serious for a change. Perhaps she felt the same as he did; that something remarkable and truly wonderful had occurred.

‘Oh, all right, so we’ll sit the dances out.’

The dance was being held in the canteen, the tables folded in a corner, piled on top of one another. He could limp a bit, his wheelchair was outside, and they were holding hands and sitting on one of the benches tucked against the walls. He was keeping his leg well out of the way, not so much bothered that someone would fall over it but that they would stand on his unprotected toes. The big room was crowded and the band played ear splittingly loudly.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

‘My plane crashed on landing,’ he said simply. ‘I was the rear gunner and thrown forward. Broke half a dozen bones. We’d taken a few hits over Berlin. It had needed a wing and a prayer to get us home.’

She shuddered and squeezed his hand. ‘Poor Robert,’ she whispered. ‘It must have been terribly painful.’

Robert shook his head. ‘I was knocked unconscious straightaway. I woke up in hospital, pleased to find I was alive and all in one piece. They sent me here to recuperate. Apparently, the hospital has a great reputation –it’s bound to improve with you there.’

‘I only recently passed my final exams. This is my first week as a nurse.’ She laid her head on his shoulder and began to croon ‘There’s A Boy Coming Home On Leave’ along with the band’s singer, a blonde in a tight red sequin dress.

Couples shuffled past locked in each other’s arms, even though they may have only met that night. There was a war on: Dunkirk was still painfully fresh in their memories, bombs were dropping all over Britain, Germany occupied several European countries, ships were being sunk. Life was cheap and thousands had already died. It meant that people lived for today and to hell with tomorrow.

It was hot in the canteen and his leg was itching madly. He wriggled uncomfortably.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘I’d pay five quid to be able to scratch my leg,’ he groaned.

‘When’s the plaster due to come off?’

‘Another three weeks.’

She stiffened. ‘Will you be sent somewhere else?’

He shrugged, unsure. ‘I’m supposed to spend three months convalescing. Whether they’ll leave me here, I’ve no idea.’ He still suffered excruciating headaches.

His hand was squeezed again. ‘Let’s hope that they will.’

He’d been born in Kent when his mother was in her late forties and her other children had grown up and left. He’d been an unpleasant surprise and she had no love left for him. his father, a farmer, spent little time at home. Robert had sometimes wondered what life was for.

And now he knew. It was to meet Moira. She was meant for him and he for her. Both realised that after just a few magical, dreamlike days.

What good luck it had been that his plane had crashed when it had and with him as the only one seriously injured. He wouldn’t have wanted his good fortune to come as a result of a tragedy for others. He was in love, they were in love, and every day was a miracle.

‘Will you marry me?’ he asked when they’d known each other a fortnight.

‘Of course,’ she smiled back. ‘But do we really need a piece of paper to prove we love each other? We’re already married in spirit, if not in law.’

She was so familiar to him it was as if they’d known each other all their lives.

The day after the plaster was removed from his leg, they made love. For both it was the first time. Moira laughed a lot and cried a bit at their initial fumbling attempts to do it properly.

They chose the private ward of the hospital, the one with only two beds reserved for officers, empty now. The door was locked but they still worried. There were only three patients in the main ward: the other two were asleep. But Moira had been left in charge and if someone came and there was no sign of her, there’d be hell to pay. And if someone came and discovered what they were up to…!

‘We’d be shot at dawn,’ she said soberly.

‘Not before they’d pulled our fingernails out.’

‘Don’t joke, it’s not funny. We’ll have to find somewhere else.’

Night after night more bombs fell on more British cities. Sixty miles away London was being pounded ceaselessly. The war was spreading as the weather became colder and winter drew in.

As if in defiance of the misery being wrought upon them, the atmosphere in the camp became quite joyful. It was impossible to walk far without hearing a song being sung, a mouth organ being played, someone whistling. The dances got quite wild, but they finished with couples clinging to each other as if they never wanted to part. Groups of people would suddenly burst into song but likely end in tears as the lyrics touched hearts in a way the composer had never imagined. ‘Kiss the Boys Goodbye’, ‘We’ll Meet Again’, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’: it was the language of love and loss, of words easier to say in song than spoken.

Robert was transferred from the hospital to a single room befitting his rank of Flight Sergeant. He needed a stick to get about so, for now, there was no mention of him being sent elsewhere. He was given a part-time job in the stores filling out order forms. Otherwise nobody bothered him.

When advised he could go home on leave, he replied he’d sooner stay on the premises.

‘Strange chap,’ commented the clerk who’d made the offer, eyeing him suspiciously.

Robert shrugged and said nothing. He just wanted to be with Moira. Nothing else mattered.

Three times a week, when Moira wasn’t working nights, they stayed in an old pub in Mersea, a watery village five miles from the camp. It was reached by a rambling bus usually full of RAF and Army personnel. Their attic room had a sloping ceiling, and was clean, comfortable and cheap. They were committed to sign in at the camp before eight o’clock next morning.