His Diamond Bride

Gradually the war news became more hopeful. Mark was still in touch with many of his pilot friends, and they passed on information not yet available to the rest of the world. In September 1943, allied troops had landed in southern Italy. In January 1944, more troops reached Italy in what became known as the Anzio landings. Their progress was slowed down by fierce resistance, but they overcame it. Hope was in the air.

Then came February, when a few days became known as ‘Big Week’ as the allied air forces stormed across Europe. The three of them listened to the nightly radio bulletins and Dee tried to read Mark’s face, wondering if he felt excluded from what was turning into a triumph. But the smile he turned on her was always warm and tender, and his hand would reach out to touch her stomach gently.

Both Joe and Mark watched Dee like guard dogs. If there was a job to be done away from home it was always Joe who took it, and even he announced that he would soon refuse them.

‘This is the last one until it’s all over,’ he announced one morning, buttoning up his jacket.

‘Dad,’ she protested, laughing, ‘nothing’s going to happen for a few weeks.’

‘And I’m going to be here when it does. ’Bye darling. Take care.’

She settled down for a pleasant day’s sewing, but within an hour she knew she’d been wrong about nothing happening. Pain started tearing through her, growing greater and greater. She screamed and Mark came hurrying in from the garage.

All the way to the hospital she tried to stay hopeful. Her moment was coming. A few hours of suffering and she would see Mark hold their child in his arms, their eyes would meet in a moment of perfect understanding and the bond between them would be sealed as never before.

But, as they reached the hospital and she was wheeled away, she knew that something was badly wrong. The pain was agonising in the wrong way; blood was flowing out of her body in a terrifying river.

‘He’s dead,’ she whispered. ‘My baby is dead.’

‘We’re giving you a blood transfusion,’ the sister said. ‘Don’t give up hope yet.’

But Dee was a nurse. She knew the truth.

‘No,’ she moaned. ‘Oh, dear God, no!’

Mark had married her for this baby, hoping to find a haven for his tormented heart. Now she was letting him down.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No-please, save my baby.’

Then everything was dark.

For Mark, waiting in a corridor, time dragged with painful slowness. At last a middle-aged nurse emerged, sympathetic when she saw him.

‘It’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?’ he asked in a shaking voice. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he’d picked something up from Dee’s tension, without understanding it.

‘I’m afraid the baby was born dead,’ the nurse said.

He closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall, his heart aching for his wife. She was suffering so much, with nothing to show for it.

‘But she’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’ he asked huskily.

In the silence that followed he felt terror rise in him. ‘She’s going to be all right!’ he almost shouted.

‘Mr Sellon, I have to be honest with you. Your wife has lost a lot of blood. We’re doing our best, but things may not go well. I think you should be prepared.’

‘No!’ he said fiercely. ‘That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it. You don’t understand. She won’t go away-because she never does-when I need her-she’s always there-’ He was breathing hard, as though he’d been running. ‘I want to see her.’

‘Of course.’ The nurse stood back to let him pass.

At first he couldn’t believe that the woman lying on the bed was Dee. His Dee was always full of life and vitality, but this woman lay as still as death, her breathing coming so faintly that it was almost noiseless.

‘Darling, wake up,’ he said urgently. ‘Look at me, talk to me.’

There was no response, no sound, no movement, and that frightened him more than anything. In all the time they had known each other, never had she refused him anything, save the time when she’d broken their engagement. And that had been the greatest misfortune of his life. Now she was refusing him again, and the spectre of the future made him recoil in dread.

‘You’ve got to listen,’ he said urgently. ‘I know you can hear me because-’ He stopped as he heard himself saying words he didn’t understand. How did he know this? And yet he did know. Somewhere, far back in his mind, he could hear a voice saying, ‘I know you’re asleep but maybe you can hear me, somewhere deep inside you… I do hope so because there’s so much I want you to understand.’

Once he’d heard those words and they had summoned him back from a dark place. Now they were his only hope.

‘Can you hear me?’ he asked, echoing the words in his memory. ‘Can my voice reach deep inside you? Please hear me. There’s so much I want you to understand.

‘I’ve never told you of my love because I didn’t know how, but I must tell you now because it may be my last chance. I think I loved you from the start. Remember how easily we could talk? That’s why I couldn’t commit to Sylvia. She was beautiful but you had something special about you, although I didn’t properly understand.

‘I was a young idiot, full of self-importance, thinking I was entitled to everything I wanted, especially girls. And all the time this feeling was growing in me but I couldn’t let myself admit the truth. It mattered too much. You mattered.

‘I was glad when we decided to pretend to be a couple because I wanted you to be my girl. So why didn’t I ask you? Because I was shy, and that’s the truth. There, laugh at me. I deserve it. I was a fool. If I hadn’t been, I’d never have lost you. I went out on the town to convince myself that I was still in charge, free of you, when the truth was I could never be free. And you threw my stupidity back in my face, as you had every right to do.’

Mark laid his head down on Dee’s breast. ‘Speak to me,’ he begged. ‘Come back to me. I love you with all my heart. I’ll never love anyone else.’

As he spoke, a door opened inside his mind and he knew that these words, too, were not his own, but had been said to him, long ago. He hadn’t recognised her love until this moment, but it was as true now as then, deeper with the depth of suffering, and his own love reached out in response.

Everything that mattered to him had come from the woman who lay in his arms, who would slip away if he couldn’t prevent it. He did the only thing that was in his power, laying his lips on hers, sending her a silent message of warmth and love.

‘Can you feel my love reaching out to you?’ he murmured, repeating what he now knew to be her words to him long ago. ‘It’s yours if you want it.’

For a long moment he held his breath, letting it out slowly as her eyes opened.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he whispered. ‘You came to me in the hospital when I was dying, and you turned me back. Now I’m here to do the same for you.’

‘Is it true?’ she murmured. ‘Is it really true?’

‘It’s true, my darling, more true than I can ever say. You’re the one, the only one. You always have been. Do you remember how you ordered me to get well, saying you were a bully? Well, so am I.’ He gave a shaky smile. ‘Woman, your husband is ordering you to get well and love him for ever.’

‘Then I must,’ she said.

‘Is that a promise?’

‘It’s a promise.’

‘I’ll hold you to it.’

Suddenly her smile was stronger. ‘Did I ever break a promise to you yet?’

He shook his head and spoke sombrely. ‘I love you, my wife. It took me too long to say it, but now I’ll be saying it every moment of all the years ahead. I love you. I love you.’

The months that followed were a mixture of grief and joy-grief for our dead child, joy that we had found each other at last. Everything was sweet and familiar, my darling, yet everything was new.

You became a little more possessive, always checking to see that I was all right. People used to say to me, ‘Doesn’t he suffocate you? Isn’t it annoying?’ But it wasn’t annoying. It was lovely being