CELIA PORTER
It must be something very important, to keep her [Margaret] from seeing John.

JEAN ASHTON
She was caught napping, like the rest of us. She went to see a friend.

CELIA
Does she usually stay out all night?

JEAN
I expect she missed her bus. She does sometimes stay with this Mrs.... this friend.

CELIA
Oh, yes. Well, I suppose she'll return in due course.

JEAN
Oh, any time, I expect.

CELIA
Yes, I see.

JEAN
She must go out occasionally.

CELIA
She was always one for going out, wasn't she?

JEAN
Oh, don't be hard on her. That air raid, when she injured her back... I think it upset her in mind as well as body.

CELIA
You can't tell me anything about suffering, in mind or body. Nobody knows what I've been through...nobody.

JEAN
I know.

CELIA
Never mind. I've got my John back now, haven't I?

JEAN
Yes.

CELIA
Oh, I shall look after him now, you know. I...

(A disturbing thought crosses her mind.)

CELIA
I've done a terrible thing. Well, Harry was in the garden when your telegram came, and I didn't tell him. He could have come with me. I didn't tell him. I didn't tell him, you see.

JEAN
Why? Why didn't you tell him?

CELIA
Well, I said I think I'll just go over and see our baby. Well, if he had said he'd come with me, I... He'll never forgive me, you know, never. Oh, you've not seen that side of him, have you? He stores things up, you know, up here. Oh, for years sometimes. "Remember this," he'll say, "Remember that." Things that happened years ago! And then he'll give me a look, as if I've broken a promise or something.

JEAN
Why didn't you tell him?

CELIA
I don't know. I just didn't. Well, he didn't tell me when he got that telegram saying John was missing...not for days, he didn't.

JEAN
He was only trying to protect you.

CELIA
What am I going to do?

JEAN
Why don't you ring him up now?

CELIA
Oh, no. Well, I can't. He's at the ordnance factory. Oh, if you ask me, that's half the trouble with him these days, working at that factory. His skin, you know, it's gone all sort of yellow, and... Oh, it's the shifts...the funny hours, you know.

JEAN
Ring him at home tonight.

CELIA
I...

JEAN
Tell him I didn't send the telegram until after he'd gone to work.

CELIA
I envy you. You know that, don't you? You're a much stronger woman than me. You can cope with all this so much better than I can.

 

(from "Believed Killed" by Alexander Baron)