‘I was a first-aider during the war. With all those bomb victims, you learned to stitch people up in no time, wherever you happened to be.’
Betty put on a pair of basic, black-rimmed glasses and made some very neat stitches across the wound, handing Miranda a bottle of what she called medicinal brandy to help with the pain.
‘I trained with your mother back in the first war. She was older than me, of course, but a natural at the nursing, very caring.’ She looked up, peering into Miranda’s eyes above her glasses. ‘You’re just like her.’
In spite of the pain, Miranda chuckled. ‘But not so caring.’
‘Just as caring, if you let yourself be.’ She finished the stitches and went back to her box to select a bandage. ‘What were you thinking,going down the alleyway, not even considering your safety? You can’t carry on pretending that you can just walk through life on your own, that no one cares. I was there tonight, listening out for you, coming to your rescue. If I hadn’t been at home, I can’t imagine what would have happened.’
‘I would have been fine.’ Miranda tried to laugh it off. ‘Independence is best for me, Betty. That’s how I am.’
‘That’s how you’ve had to be, you mean. Ever since your mother’s accident, you’ve had to look after yourself, and you were still so young, too.’
A memory flickered through her mind of the days when her mother was sick, her twelve-year-old self prodding her father to get out of bed for work. She was late for school again, a forged late note in her hand, only she’d run out of excuses.
Miranda felt her defences rise. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘It was, Miranda. Your mother wrote to me. She told me to keep an eye on you should anything happen to her, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.’ Betty sighed, giving her a concerned look. ‘You need to realize that life isn’t one great big battle to be controlled and conquered. It’s here to be savoured and enjoyed.’ She began to wind the bandage around Miranda’s wrist. ‘I’m a widow, too, you know. Do I walk down the alleyway? Do I shun friendships and family members? Or do I care for myself and other people, let people care for me?’
‘But you’ve been a widow for years.’
Betty’s eyes levelled with hers. ‘So have you.’
The words hung in the air. Miranda opened her mouth to protest, but what could she say? It had been eight whole years since Jack had died, and instead of arguing back at her aunt, she murmured, ‘Why doesn’t it feel that long?’
‘Because you’re so busy fighting the rest of the world that you’ve barely come up for air.’ Betty patted her hand. ‘What you need, Miranda, is someone you care about.’
Miranda laughed. ‘Don’t you mean that’s what you want, Betty? A stand-in daughter, another family member living with you? I see your game. You can’t force me to be something I’m not.’
Betty pinned the bandage before she replied, ‘Like I said, dear, love isn’t about forcing people to do or be anything. It’s about supporting each other, knowing you have someone you can rely on, loving each other.’ She smiled gently. ‘You’ve had a hard life, Miranda. Your mother was such a force before the accident, and then Jack was killed. You’ve had to carry on without them. It might feel easier to stay on your own, to control everything, but life offers far more than that.’
Miranda thought about her mother, how much she’d missed her.
‘And now you have me.’ Betty pulled her chin up defiantly. ‘I’ll always be here if you need me. It feels like you’re trapped in the past. Maybe you could make a little space for the present – the future, even?’ She looked hopefully at Miranda.
Eyeing her, Miranda shook her head. ‘You can’t drag me down that route, Betty. I’ve already lost one friend who asked too many questions, and I’m not about to lose you, too.’
‘Who else have you fallen out with?’ Betty glared at her, slightly annoyed for once. ‘Is it that nice young man from the Foreign Office?’
Irritated by her aunt’s insightfulness, Miranda heaved a sigh. ‘He wanted to know too much – and maybe he wanted a bit too much from me, too.’ She looked ahead. ‘He doesn’t understand, not about Jack.’
‘I can’t imagine Jack would want you to be locked in the past, dear. Wouldn’t he want you to move on, maybe find someone else?’
‘You don’t understand.’ Miranda drew to a halt. ‘It was me who forced him to sign up.’ With the words, she felt a pain above her diaphragm and had to grip her lips together before she could carry on. ‘How young and stupid I was! I only thought of what we could do, the roles we could both play in this great war. Everyone in the States was divided as to whether we should get involved in the war, and I was determined that we should help, with Mum being British and London being bombed. As soon as war was declared, I wanted to be in the forefront – and I wanted Jack to do the same.’
The words came out hot and ferocious, the act of airing them reigniting them.
And she said in a smaller voice, ‘He wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for me.’
‘Wouldn’t he have been drafted, though? Sooner or later a young man like him would have had to fight.’
‘If he’d have joined later, he would have been on a different ship, in a different battle.’
‘But he might have been killed in any of those.’ Betty took her hands. ‘That’s the dreadful thing about war. People are killed or injured in such an arbitrary way. In the Blitz, we used to say that a bomb had someone’s name on it, as if it was meant to be. It was the best we could do, to accept that it happened, and most of all, that it couldn’t possibly have been our fault.’
‘But every time I let myself think about it, I can’t help wishing I could go back in time, do it differently.’
Betty gripped her hands tightly. ‘Grief does awful things, Miranda. Don’t let it hijack your life. You had as much to do with Jack’s death as I did. Now promise me you’ll stop blaming yourself.Youare a victim of war just as much as he is.’ She paused, and then, in a softer voice, added, ‘The ghosts of our past are just as tangible as the people around us. We mustn’t forget them, but we have to learn how to live alongside them.’
