‘I’ve felt better.’ His lips moved slowly, and he attempted a smile.
‘You must have been terrified.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Not by that …’
He fell silent, and she wondered what he meant. She sat down beside the bed. She couldn’t bear to have secrets from him anymore. She knew she must tell him about the letter. She opened her mouth to speak, but then hesitated.
He was watching her face, waiting for her to speak.
‘I’m so glad you’re …’
‘Still alive?’ He said the words she couldn’t bring herself to say.
Her eyes filled with tears, but before she could speak again, a West Indian nurse with an ample frame and smiling eyes came in and began fiddling with one of the monitors above her father’s bed.
‘I’m sorry, my dear, but we need our rest now,’ she said to Laura. ‘Could you come back again tomorrow?
Laura got up quickly. ‘Of course. Yes. I’ll come back in the morning. What time?
‘Visiting hours are between ten and eleven.’
She leaned forward and kissed Dad, screwing her face up to hold back the tears.
‘See you tomorrow,’ she whispered.
Outside the room the doctor was bustling past with a clipboard, hurrying to see another patient.
‘Is he going to be OK?’
The doctor stopped. He looked at Laura as if he didn’t remember who she was. Then he glanced at his board and said, ‘Ah, yes … Mr. Ellis. He’ll be in intensive care for a couple of days. The first two days are the most critical. After that we’ll move him into the main ward. He’s done well today. It was touch and go for a while though.’
When she let herself in to the house, she found Ken and Marge waiting anxiously in the back kitchen. They were sitting at the table. Marge clasped a mug of tea in her hands with fingerless gloves. Ken had a tumbler of whisky in front of him.
‘He’s going to be OK,’ she said, sitting down at the table, taking a grateful gulp of whisky when Ken pushed the tumbler towards her.
‘Thank God.’ Marge burst into tears of relief.
Laura couldn’t face going back to the flat that night. She hated to admit it to herself, but she was not sure if Luke would share her concern about Dad being in hospital, and it was best to avoid having that suspicion confirmed.
The telephone rang as she was going up to her room to bed. It was Luke. He sounded as though he’d been drinking.
‘I thought you were coming to the flat?’ he said blearily. ‘Where are you? I’ve been waiting.’
‘Dad’s had a heart attack, Luke. I’ve been at the hospital.’
There was a long silence. Then he said gently, ‘Are you OK? Do you want me to come over?’
Tears of relief sprung to her eyes.
‘No. I’m fine. I’ll be better on my own. I’ll have to go back to the hospital in the morning.’
‘If you need me, just give me a call. Anytime. And, Laura, thanks for what you did for me today.’
It seemed so long ago she’d almost forgotten.
‘It was nothing. Anyone could have done that,’ she said.
The next morning she was outside her father’s hospital room at ten o’clock sharp. She saw that he had more colour in his cheeks but his eyes were still ringed with exhaustion.
‘I’m sorry I was difficult about Luke,’ was the first thing he said to her as she walked in. ‘I had no right, and it was very foolish of me.’
‘I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.’
‘All I want is for you to be happy, Laura. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And if he makes you happy, that’s all that matters.’
She looked away. Could she answer truthfully that Luke made her happy?
‘I wanted to ask you …’ she began once she had regained her composure. ‘It might seem a strange thing to ask, but I’ve been wondering about when you were young. Did you have other girlfriends? Before Mum I mean?’
‘What a strange question. Dozens of course,’ he answered with a smile.
‘No, seriously. What about in Penang? Was there somebody special there?’
She thought she saw him flinch at the words, but he recovered himself quickly.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘We received a letter once,’ she began carefully, ‘with a Penang postmark.’
‘Oh, it would have been from the Volunteers’ charity. They used to write sometimes, asking for contributions. Why?’
‘It got lost. I mean … I lost it.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Like I said, must have been just the Volunteers. Nothing important.’
She opened her mouth to protest. She knew it wasn’t from the Volunteers. They wouldn’t have opened the letter with ‘My Dearest Tom’. But she hadn’t the courage to tell him. Perhaps she could try to approach it in another way.
‘When you’re better, do you think you might tell me about what happened to you back then?’
He frowned. ‘Then?’
‘In the war, I mean. I’d like to know. I’ve never asked before, but I’ve begun to realise that I ought to know about it.’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said wearily. ‘No-one who wasn’t there would understand.’
‘I could try. I am grown up now, Dad.’
‘I always kept it from you. And your mother, as well. I wanted to protect you both from it.’
‘Protect?’
‘Things happened then that … aren’t easy to talk about.’
‘Couldn’t you try?’
He shook his head. ‘I did it once. That was enough.’
His voice was beginning to falter. His eyelids were drooping.
‘Who? Did you talk to someone about this?’
‘Alfred, I think his name was. Arthur or Alfred … Stone. Yes, that was it. You can ask him if you want to know.’
‘But who is he?’
‘Oh, just someone I met after the war. Look, I’m tired now, Laura. Please.’
She felt miserable. She had meant to tell him about burning the letter, but had failed, and she’d now exhausted him with her questions.
The doctor Laura had met the day before walked into the room. Her father looked up and made an effort to smile at him.
‘Cha,’ he said in a weak voice.
‘Loo hoe bo?’
