A Mother Forever by Elaine Everest (free children's online books txt) 📕

sat rigid-backed, a handbag resting on her knees. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d find herself sitting in the waiting room of a prison. When Frank had told her of Eddie’s situation, she hadn’t believed it. How could he be fighting in France one minute, and then back to England and in prison, without us knowing anything about it? she’d asked Frank.

‘He’s been locked up for over three years now, and has another three years to go.’

‘Oh my goodness, whatever has he done? This sounds serious, even for Eddie. He’s never had a squeaky-clean life, but to go to prison for six years? Why, and how come he never let me know he was there? It’s so cruel of him. I want to see him, Frank. I need to get to the bottom of this.’

‘I wish I hadn’t told you,’ Frank had said. ‘He’s going to spoil your Christmas.’

Ruby had sighed. ‘Don’t think I wouldn’t know you had a secret. You’ve never been able to keep a secret, I’d see through you in minutes. Tell me all you know.’

It had taken Frank three weeks to obtain a visiting order for Ruby to see Eddie. He’d taken the day off from the bookshop and driven her to Wandsworth Prison himself. This was not something Ruby should have to face on her own. Granted he couldn’t go inside with her, but he could wait in his motor car. He had a book with him, so he was comfortable for as long as it took, although his eyes kept straying to the high walls of the prison and the locked door.

When Ruby was called through to the room where she could meet Eddie, she gasped in shock. He seemed so downhearted, and had aged terribly.

‘What have you done, Eddie?’ she snapped. ‘And what have you done to my family? I bet you don’t even know you are a grandfather, and you wouldn’t recognize our Pat if you walked past her in the street – you are like a stranger to us. I don’t even know why I’ve come to see you.’

‘I know everything about your life, Ruby. I know where you work, I know that George has moved away with his wife and child, and I know our Pat is thriving. The only thing I’ve not been able to do is hold you in my arms and kiss you,’ he said, searching her face desperately for a sign of forgiveness.

Ruby was aware there was a prison warden standing in the corner of the room. He could hear everything that was said. ‘Please don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t talk about us like this. Why didn’t you get in touch with me, Eddie? That’s all I want to know. I thought you’d died when Derek was so badly injured. I was confused when no one could tell me anything about you. You could at least give me the answers to what I’ve been wondering all these years?’

Eddie continued to look at the face of the woman he’d loved for so long and couldn’t bear to disappoint. He spotted a couple of silver hairs and minute lines around her eyes, but deep down, she was still the feisty young woman he’d married. ‘I’m no good for you, Ruby. You’re better off without me.’

‘Just tell me what happened,’ she pleaded.

‘I was injured at the same time as Derek. I thought he’d died. To look at him lying there, his body twisted, his face covered in blood . . . I thought he was a goner. Ernie Minchin lay lifeless nearby; all my mates were wiped out in one blow. I was concussed, in a lot of pain, with injuries to my shoulder and leg. Like a coward, I got up and I ran. There was heavy gunfire and so much commotion. If I’d run in the other direction, I’d have been taken out by snipers. I ran blindly until I fell into a trench and lay there for a while, close to a couple of lads. They could see how bad I was. You’ve got no idea what it was like there, Ruby, with the persistent bombing, not much to eat. I was going out of my mind with fear.’

‘But Eddie, so many men were in the same boat as you. They haven’t ended up in prison. So what did you do to get here?’

‘It was wet. It was cold. The two lads in the trench took my jacket off me, wrapped up my wound and gave me a cleaner trench coat that had belonged to one of their comrades. I worked my way blindly through the trenches before collapsing. When I came to, I was being carried back to a medical unit behind the lines. They quizzed me to find out who I was, but I was completely out of my mind. They searched my pockets and found the paperwork of a Corporal Daniel Gordon. After a few days, as my memory came back to me, I could see this was a way out. It could give me a fresh start – away from you, and your lies.’

Ruby was astonished. ‘What are you talking about – lies? What has this got to do with me?’ she asked. And then the penny dropped. ‘It was those letters Stella sent to Derek, wasn’t it?’

Eddie gave her a hard stare and shrugged his shoulders.

‘If only you’d written to me to ask. Stella wasn’t the woman you remember. After Donald was killed, and she found out Pat was your daughter and not Frank’s, she turned very bitter towards me. It was only when I saw Derek and we gradually pieced together what happened that we realized, as awful as it sounds, Stella had been deliberately causing trouble between me and you. Do you know that when she heard Derek had been injured, around about the same time that Donald was killed, she turned on me and said Derek had let her know that you’d been killed? When I didn’t receive notification