Walking Back to Happiness. Anne Bennett

beside him, but before he was able to speak, a bomb blew Mike Murphy to kingdom come and blasted his friend into a hole beside him.

      When Bridie Murphy went into the hall and found her husband lying still on the floor with the opened telegram in his hand, her own heart nearly stopped beating. She prised the telegram from her husband’s fingers and on reading it, knew that she’d lost her husband as well as her son. The bad heart the doctor had warned him about had finally given up.

      She phoned her older sister, Christine, from the telephone box down the road, before she rang the doctor, knowing that Colm was way past a doctor’s help and her sister would know what to do.

      Christine, unmarried and older than Bridie by five years, did know. It was a good job she was there to arrange a funeral for after the initial shock, Bridie had been so overwhelmed with grief she’d been under sedation ever since, unable to give any thought or concern to Hannah and her plight.

      Christine was determined, despite Bridie’s condition, that the old man at least would have the dignity of being laid to rest in a proper grave and with a full Requiem Mass. Mike’s remains were probably left on the beach, like many more.

      She was worried though about her sister. She had totally gone to pieces and she knew she couldn’t be left alone and decided to take her back to Wiltshire to live with her. She could decide what to do about the house later. Houses would, she guessed, be at a premium after the war and she wouldn’t advise her to sell it yet awhile. But she could let it out. She didn’t have to concern herself about the details of it. She’d instruct her solicitor to find a reputable agent as soon as possible. Unoccupied houses ran quickly to rack and ruin and anyway, with so many being bombed out of their homes, empty houses were in danger of being invaded by squatters.

      She came upon Mike’s letter on the mantelpiece as she began packing some of her sister’s things and read it dispassionately.

      Mike wrote that this girl, Hannah Delaney, was carrying his child. How did he know that? It could have been anyone’s bastard she was carrying, but she’d picked him to carry the can for it. Christine had heard there were plenty of girls doing that these days.

      There’d obviously been no talk of the engagement, or a wedding before the girl became pregnant, because Bridie would have written to tell her. Well, Mike was no longer able to defend himself and her sister she knew was in no fit state to look after this girl, whoever she was. She was in no state to look after anyone or anything, and she screwed up the letter into a ball and threw it into the fire.

      ‘God, Hannah, when would he have time to write?’ Tilly said sternly to her tearful friend when there had been no letters for over a week.

      By then the whole country knew that Operation Overlord, or D-Day, had begun on 6th June 1944 and was deemed a success. ‘They’re advancing in enemy-held territory,’ Tilly went on. ‘He can hardly say, “Hold on a minute,” and get the whole company to stop while he writes a note to you. Even if he managed to write, where the hell would he post it? It’s not like at the camp where there’s a handy military pillar box nearby.’

      Hannah knew all Tilly said was true and she tried to make herself believe that any day there would be a letter, maybe a clutch of them, and she’d know he was safe. She wondered if he’d ever even had time to write to his parents. She’d expected to hear from them by now too. Something would have to be decided and soon about her pregnancy, but worry about Mike seemed to loom over everything.

      There had been an absence of letters for almost three weeks when Hannah was summoned to the supervisor Miss Henderson’s office. She’d been expecting it for some time for she was five months pregnant and had had to let out her work and leisure clothes to their fullest extent and that morning she’d seen the supervisor’s eyes on her as she served breakfasts.

      The supervisor looked at her over the top of the glasses people said she just wore for effect. Hannah had had little dealings with her since the day she’d been interviewed for the job. She hadn’t liked her manner then and she didn’t like it any better now.

      Miss Henderson was thin, not just slim, stick thin, and she wore suits with fitted jackets to emphasise her shape. Everything about her was thin; her long face, her nose, her lips, even her voice had a thin snap to it.

      Beside her, Hannah felt big and ungainly. But she raised her head when Miss Henderson said disdainfully, ‘You’ve been putting on weight lately, Miss Delaney?’

      ‘Yes, Miss Henderson.’

      ‘Are you expecting a child?’

      There was no point denying it. ‘Yes, Miss Henderson.’

      ‘And how long, pray, did you intend to keep this information to yourself?’

      ‘I don’t know, Miss Henderson.’

      ‘You don’t know, I see. Who is the father of the child?’

      Hannah thought of telling Miss Henderson to mind her own business. She shrugged, what did it matter now? ‘A soldier, Miss Henderson. Name of Mike … Michael Murphy.’

      ‘Married?’ Miss Henderson snapped in a voice full of scorn.

      Hannah was shocked. ‘No, Miss Henderson.’

      ‘So he can marry you?’

      ‘We were to be married, Miss Henderson. Everything was booked. But then he got shipped south and then overseas.’

      ‘So now what will you do, for you realise you can’t stay here?’ Miss Henderson said. ‘You’ll upset and embarrass our guests, so when I tell you to pack your things, where will you go?’