Free Spare Brides by Adele Parks Page B

on a weekend party; even Lydia’s influence was not guaranteed over the headstrong Ava. However, swiftly following the feelings of relief at being included, Sarah was plunged into a dilemma as to whether or not she wanted to accept.
    Sarah had little genuine personal interest in such parties nowadays; she’d actually prefer to stay at home with her children and her brother. She had no ambition to marry again, to indulge in social climbing or even to master a new hobby, which was the acknowledged
raison d’être
for these get-togethers. She accepted that a variation in company could be entertaining, but she was also adult enough to know that, equally, it could be disturbing; she’d been to numerous weekend parties where she was patronised, scandalised or simply irritated by complete strangers in whose company she was forced to dwell for forty-eight hours or more.
    Sarah was thirty-one but felt older. She had ceased to be young the moment Arthur signed up to defend King and Country. The weight of fear and dread had engulfed her for ten months, leaving her skittish and unreasonable. She found it impossible to care about the things other young women did, such as going to the cinema or learning the latest dance craze; all she cared about was him coming home. Safely. When he didn’t return, the fear and dread was replaced by the more cumbersome weight of grief and responsibility, which sapped all her energy and any remaining vitality. After the telegram, the world was simply never as colourful again. Besides the everyday changes that his death brought – financial insecurity, the terror of bringing up two children without a father and the social demotion of being a widow rather than a wife – her world turned grey because she missed him. She missed him so much. When she first read the telegram her heart heaved. It felt as though it had jumped right out of her body and escaped. She was sure it was severed from her because she felt nothing but shock. Horror. But then it returned. She knew it had come back because it hurt so much. There was an actual excruciating pain in her chest for days, weeks. She felt that someone was squeezing the life out of her by clasping her heart tightly. The grip was agony. She would die too. She’d loved him so! He had been a handsome, honest, funny man. He’d made her feel safe and valued. She missed his conversation, his jokes, his arms, the smell of his pipe. She missed the weight of him in bed at night.
    Initially everyone respected her right to shun company, but after two or three months, well-meaning visitors returned and told her she had to buck up and carry on, ‘At least for the sake of the children’. There was too much general grief to allow anyone the luxury of personal wallowing. Eminently sensible Sarah knew this advice was wise and fair, although it didn’t make it any more palatable. She did buck up: she forced herself to style her hair in the mornings (although she still kept it long and wore it in a bun, clasped at the back of her neck, as she’d worn it when Arthur went to war; she didn’t bother to keep up with fashions), she took the children on outings, escorted her sister to tea dances and, when Samuel came back injured, she spent a lot of her time helping Cecily with all her responsibilities. Sarah lived a perfectly useful life. She found pleasure in small things, such as knitting pullovers for the children; the repetitive click-clack of the needles soothed her through the dark evenings. She liked to take long walks in the country with the children; if there was a wind, they’d fly kites; if the air was still, they’d play with a ball. She went to church regularly and tried not to ask why too often. The one thing she could not return to was gardening. She no longer enjoyed the feel of mud beneath her fingers; the earthy smells distressed her, the wriggling worms revolted her, and once, the stench of rotting foliage made her physically vomit. She made jam and visited