“We made love of course, but later he just carried on talking and talking. He was like a record that had become stuck. It seemed as though Eric was on some sort of mission to tell me everything he had ever known, knew, read or learned in his lifetime.”
In the end I just couldn’t take any more. It was about five in the morning when I finally called a halt. I have always needed my sleep… and I was five months pregnant. ‘Eric, darling, please!’ I cried at last. I took his head in my hands and told him I simply must have my sleep. I told him I had to be up with Suzanne in a few hours time. But he might never have heard me. He just carried on talking and was still talking as I drifted off to sleep.
“My dreams were troubled and, exhausted as I was, I awoke a few hours later to find Eric drenched in sweat. He was fast asleep, but it was a troubled sleep. He was twitching and groaning as though he was having a nightmare. Instinct told me something was very wrong. I switched on the bedside light and I noticed a rash on his chest.
“It was an angry red colour, stippled with tiny white blisters, and stretched from his neck to just above his waistline. I had never seen anything like it. I bathed it gently in cool water and Eric woke. I asked him how he had gotten the rash, but he was non-committal. He said it was nothing. But that didn’t satisfy me. I remember thinking he had picked up some tropical disease and the next morning I asked daddy to take a look.
“He made an examination but said he hadn’t a clue what it was. It was beyond his experience. Of course we realised much later that it was probably a radiation burn, but at the time it was a mystery.
“Eric never discussed with me what had happened on Christmas Island. The only time I heard him talk about it was a few days later with my father. They were sitting together and daddy suddenly said, ‘What was it like, son?’ I remember Eric thinking about it for a while before making a decision.
“He said he had almost lost control of his aircraft as it went into the mushroom cloud. His plane was tossed about by the most incredible forces. He said the only way he could deal with his fear was by reciting the line from the Charge of the Light Brigade, ‘Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell, rode the six hundred…’ over and over again.
“He also told daddy he had been very sick when he landed at Fiji to refuel on the way home. He had never mentioned this to me, and I asked him about it later. But he absolutely refused to discuss it. He said he would get into the most serious trouble if he talked about it in any way.
“He seemed very scared about what had happened to him and I think that he knew deep down he had been seriously affected by his experience. I never did find out what Eric had been told about his mission or the possible dangers. But I knew he would have been extensively briefed and I recalled how upset he had been when he came home to tell me he was being sent away.
“As the weeks went by, Eric’s odd behavior continued. Both sets of parents noticed the change in him and were openly voicing their concerns. They suggested he got treatment for his ‘rash’ as well as for other ailments ranging from sudden allergic reactions, to chronic breathing problems. But Eric absolutely refused to visit the RAF doctor at the base. He said you had to be in A1 condition if you wanted to stay in the service and the first hint that all was not well could easily lead to a discharge… or worse still, as far as Eric was concerned, a one-way ticket to a boring desk job.
“But after some considerable persuasion he was prevailed upon to book into a private clinic. Eric had an operation for sinusitis at the clinic, but it was his deteriorating mental condition that was causing most concern.
“He was becoming more and more frenetic and hyperactive. His brain was racing all the time, like a piece of machinery that didn’t have a stop button. It was an awful time and our marriage began to suffer. We never discussed anything anymore.
“Before he was sent away, we always talked about everything and were always planning the future, having dreams together, what we hoped for the children, things like that. From wanting to talk about everything under the sun when he came back, he now didn’t want to discuss anything, and try as I might I couldn’t get close to him.
“He often seemed like a shadow, someone who was with me all the time, but elusive and insubstantial. It was as though he was trying to run away from something and at the same time desperately searching for something. He was drawing deeper and deeper into himself and I simply couldn’t reach him.
“Eric started to do things that were completely out of character, like ‘forgetting’ to give me my housekeeping money. I friend of mine remarked that I was letting myself go. I was only in my twenties, but she said I was beginning to look much older. I said everything was all right, but one day she said to me, ‘Shirley, look at your feet…’ I looked and she was right. It was a freezing cold day, but all I was wearing was a pair of cheap, plastic sandals and my feet were blue with cold.
“The problem was I simply did not have the money to buy myself a new pair. I simply couldn’t make ends meet on what Eric was giving me. I don’t think he was being mean to me deliberately. I really do believe, he just forgot… but of course that didn’t help me. Looking back there were so many indications of the changes in him.
“At the annual Cranwell ball, something that was so special to me, he was completely out of character. He was no longer the perfect gentleman I had fallen in love with. He drank heavily and rather ignored me. We had two children and we couldn’t be late home. But when it was time to go, he told me to go on ahead.
“He didn’t come in until the early hours and to make matters worse was sick on the bathroom floor. This was so out of character. I know these things taken individually were no big deal. But taken together it added up to a very serious change in Eric’s personality.
“I soldiered on hoping that one day the old Eric would come back to me, and did my best to lead as normal a life as possible. But I was beginning to realise just how distant and out of touch we had become. He was changing before my eyes. He became aloof, when once he had been approachable; he was cold, when once he had been warm.
“He barely liked to be touched when once he had been so tactile. I was so upset and worried, but Eric didn’t care. I wanted him back and yearned for the days, before he went to Christmas Island when we always kissed and cuddled in bed. It was the natural thing for us to do. I longed for that wonderful closeness. I tried to cuddle him again, but he had become unbelievably cold and frigid.
“When he didn’t want to be touched he used to draw an imaginary line down the centre of the bed with his finger and say to me, ‘Don’t cross the line. Don’t touch me.’ I know most women would be reaching for the rolling pin at such behavior, but I was just absolutely devastated.
“What upset me most was that this change in Eric had happened so abruptly. I may have been able to live with it if it had taken place over a long period of time; I may have been able to understand it. But this was as sudden as Jekyll and Hyde. It seemed as though one day I had a gentle, warm man and the next I had this cold, aloof creature.
“It crossed my mind, of course, that he had another woman. I looked through his pockets for all the tell-tale signs. But I found no notes, no lipstick marks. No trace of strange perfumes on his clothes. What, then? What was causing this terrifying change in his behaviour? It was happening right in front of my eyes and was getting progressively worse. I felt so helpless because there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
“The man that came home to me every night was still the same tall, broad-shouldered, handsome individual I had fallen in love with. But his body might just as well have been inhabited by another person; a cruel, mean individual who didn’t know how to love or be loved.