‘No,’ Constance said, her forcefulness surprising even her. ‘I don’t want to go home. They’ve gone. It’s over, and we’re alive. I want to feel alive, Henry. Properly alive. Please, let’s carry on to the ruins.’
Henry looked at her for the longest while before retrieving their bikes.
The Quarr Abbey ruins were their secret; they’d sat many times, hidden from view, and been sent on their way once too by a strolling monk who’d stumbled across them. As they embraced in the shadows cast by the old stones, Henry kissed Constance with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. She disentangled herself from his arms and took a step back, lifting her dress over her head, so she was standing before him in her slip.
‘Ah, God, but you’re beautiful Connie,’ Henry’s voice cracked, as she removed her slip and stepped back into his arms, pressing her naked body against him.
‘I won’t be able to stop, Connie,’ he warned his voice was husky.
‘I don’t want you to.’
Chapter 20
Constance sat in the sitting room with her mum and Ginny who was looking like a barrel fit to burst. It was Arthur Downer’s evening for patrol duty. The two women’s conversation floated over her head as she relived what she and Henry had done at the ruins these last three Sundays. A delicious shiver coursed through her at the memory of how only yesterday she’d lain down on the grass and closing her eyes felt his fingers stroking her bare flesh. He’d been tentative at first, and it had been her that had urged him on wanting more. His mouth grazed her neck, and then travelled further settling over a nipple and sending an exquisite sensation rocketing through her. She’d moaned, and arched her back raising herself to him as she turned her body feeling his hardness pressing against her. He’d paused only to take his own clothes off before she’d given herself completely to him, and for a brief moment in time, they were one.
‘Constance!’ Eleanor Downer said impatience in her voice.
‘Sorry, Mummy. What did you say?’
‘You’re away with the fairies these days my girl. I was just telling Ginny that your Grandma June used to make the most delicious jam roly-poly pudding and that the secret, she always said, was in letting the pudding sit before unwrapping it.’
‘Yes that’s what she used to say, and it was gorgeous, Ginny.’ Constance smiled hoping her eyes weren’t too bright or her cheeks flushed. Her mother had eagle eyes at the best of times, and Constance didn’t want her guessing what had transpired at the abbey ruins. She might not be married in the eyes of God but she felt married. She was Henry’s wife in all ways now except for the piece of paper legally saying it was so. Her mother would not understand any of that though.
All three jumped as the air raid sounded and needles and wool were abandoned as they made their way downstairs. There was a sense of urgency among the trio as they filed outside to the Anderson Shelter. As Constance bent her head and clambered inside the tin hut after Ginny, she wondered as she always did how having nothing but a mound of earth above their heads was supposed to keep them safe.
Inside the shelter, it was cold, dark and dank. It was a nightmare in itself, but the alternative was worse. Constance clutched her sister-in-law and mum’s hands as they crouched down. She had no right to complain; their present circumstances must have been intolerable for Ginny given the mound protruding from her middle. She knew too that mum would be fretting. She always did when the siren sounded, and daddy was on patrol. ‘Mummy tell us a story about when Teddy was little,’ Constance said to distract her. Ginny liked to hear Teddy spoken of. She said it made her feel he was still there with her. It was therapeutic for them all, Constance thought. There was no sadness in the life lived, only in the life lost.
Eleanor Downer relayed the story; they’d heard ten times before about Teddy having always tended to independence from the moment he’d grabbed hold of his mummy’s skirt and hauled himself upright. On this particular occasion, he had been returned home, his parents thinking him napping in his cot having been found helping himself to an orange from the greengrocers, at the age of two. A smile played at the corners of Constance’s mouth despite their circumstances as she listened to the familiar tale. The state of limbo waiting for the raining bombs to subside was interminable, and while Eleanor’s voice threatened to give out, her well of stories, however, would never run dry.
Constance was convinced the Jerrys would not be satisfied until Wight was nothing more than an echo of its former self. It was always the worst bit; she thought shivering, not knowing when the siren sounded to signal it was safe for them to venture outside whether there’d be a home for them to return to. It did stop eventually like it always did, and the weary trio trooped back inside Pier View House and up the stairs to their beds.
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In the comforting light of a new day with bricks and mortar cocooning her, Constance looked around their small kitchen perturbed. ‘Where’s daddy?’ It was strange not to see him seated in his usual position at the breakfast table especially after all the activity last night. She knew he’d returned safe and sound from duty in the wee hours because, hearing his familiar tread up the stairs, she’d gotten up to see for herself that he was unscathed. He was weary but not physically wounded, and he brought the news home with him that
