At Home by the Sea

by Pam Weaver

  ‘Of course,’ said Izzie dully. ‘Can I have the April 17th and April 24th editions?’

  ‘The trial,’ said the receptionist.

  Izzie nodded.

  ‘I remember it was delayed because Easter was at the beginning of April that year,’ said the receptionist, getting ready to leave the desk again. ‘Give me a minute or two.’

  Half an hour later Izzie walked out into the rain with two old newspapers that had broken her heart stuffed into her handbag.

  Twenty-One

  As Izzie walked to work one week in February, the streets of Worthing were strangely quiet. She became aware that the few people about had sombre faces and a woman was crying in the doorway of Woolworth’s as the manager opened the door to let her in. By the time she reached the café, Izzie was feeling very unsettled. Carol opened the door, her face streaked with tears.

  ‘Whatever’s happened?’ Izzie asked but Carol only put her handkerchief to her mouth to suppress a sob.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Helen. ‘It’s the King. He’s dead.’

  ‘What? When?’ Izzie put her hand to her mouth in shocked surprise. ‘I didn’t listen to the wireless this morning.’

  ‘They’ll announce it again at nine o’clock I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Mr Semadini. ‘We shall not be opening today, so come into the office.’

  Everyone, including Mr Umberto and Mr Benito and Ken, squeezed into the office and Mr Semadini switched on the wireless. After listening to sombre music, John Snagg came on at nine.

  ‘This is London. It is with the greatest sorrow …’

  Izzie’s mind froze. So he’d gone. George VI had been king virtually the whole of her lifetime. She was only two when he came to the throne, and now he was gone. Like everyone else in the room, she felt a great and yawning loss.

  ‘… that the King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health, passed peacefully away in his sleep early this morning …’

  Carol was sobbing now. Izzie slipped her arm around her shoulders and at the same time they heard someone trying the café door.

  Mr Semadini frowned. ‘Go and tell them we’re closed.’

  Izzie took a deep breath. ‘Excuse me, Sir, but if you don’t mind me saying so, I think you should open.’

  He glanced up at her in shocked surprise and she heard Helen take in a breath.

  ‘But out of respect …’ Mr Umberto began.

  ‘I think a lot of your customers regard you as friends,’ Izzie went on, ‘and when something terrible happens, don’t you seek out those closest to you for comfort?’

  Mr Semadini shook his head. ‘I don’t want to be seen to be making a profit out of this.’

  Everybody looked thoughtful.

  ‘I for one would be willing to donate my day’s wages to charity,’ said Izzie.

  They all looked from one to the other and began to nod. ‘I don’t mind doing that,’ said Carol.

  ‘Nor I.’

  ‘Include me in that.’

  While everybody left the office, Mr Semadini began to write a notice and Izzie went to the door to let in the first of their bereaved customers. Her suggestion proved to be the right thing to do. It turned out to be an emotional day but their regulars, especially those who lived on their own, were grateful to have somewhere to go. When they read Mr Semadini’s notice by the till, the gifts left in the sweet jar exceeded the usual total by several pounds. Mr Semadini decided to donate the money to the Queen Alexandra Hospital Home, where veterans of the First and Second World Wars were cared for. King George VI’s newly widowed Queen Elizabeth often visited there.

  ‘I think we really helped those people,’ Mr Semadini said as he stood by the shop door to lock up after them at the end of the day. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Isobelle.’

  She smiled up at him and as their eyes met she was afraid he could hear her heart thudding. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on both cheeks. Her face flamed.

  ‘Buonanotte, mia cara.’

  She slipped past him and he locked the door. Izzie had no idea what he’d just said to her but it sounded lovely.

  *

  They buried the King at St George’s Chapel in Windsor nine days after the announcement came. The café had closed for the funeral, of course, and like millions of others, Izzie and her family gathered around the wireless. Linda sat painting her nails and though for a brief second Izzie felt sure she saw her father wipe away a tear with the back of his hand, for the most part he sat grim-faced behind a bottle of stout. As soon as the broadcast was over, he left the house without a word – for the pub, she presumed.

  ‘Are you all right, Linda?’

  Her sister shrugged. She wasn’t very talkative these days. Izzie wasn’t sure why but she reasoned that if Linda had a problem, she would tell her. Thankfully, she was a little more helpful in the house these days, which had eased their relationship quite a bit.

  ‘Is it just because you’re sad?’ Izzie probed.

  ‘Oh stop going on,’ Linda snapped as she left the room in a huff.

  Izzie sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward. She was always treading on egg shells as far as Linda was concerned.

  On the Saturday following the funeral, Izzie got to see her mother again. The weather had been mixed; the snow had gone and spring was making a valiant attempt to get going. The fact that there were far fewer crowds along the parade meant that they’d walked quite a long way.

  They sat on a bench in a tiny public space near the station. Not big enough to be called a park, it sat back from the main thoroughfare like a small green oasis. A few sparrows hopped among the pigeons, looking for scraps, and a lone daffodil waved at the edge of some railings. It was cold but the thin sunshine gave the illusion of a nice day and so long as they pulled their coats around themselves tightly, it was quite pleasant.

  Izzie and her mother had enjoyed their usual cup of tea in a café near the station and this was the walk back for Izzie to catch the train. When Izzie showed her the newspaper cuttings from the Worthing Herald, she was shocked by her mother’s reaction. Doris turned her head away and was clearly upset.

  ‘Oh Mum,’ she said helplessly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’

  Doris struggled to compose herself.

  Izzie had been trying to pluck up the courage to tell her mother about the cuttings the whole time and now that she had, she wasn’t quite sure how to cope with the fallout.

  ‘Mum, I know you’d rather not talk about what happened, but I hate the not knowing.’

  Doris put her hand over Izzie’s. ‘I know,’ she choked, ‘and I promise … I promise I will tell you. I will.’

  Izzie chewed her lip. ‘I have to get the train soon,’ she ventured. ‘Next time, eh?’

  Doris looked relieved. She nodded. ‘Next time. I promise.’

  They embraced and parted and Izzie walked the rest of the way up the hill towards the station. She was hardly aware of entering the station concourse and still deep in thought when a man’s voice, though gentle, startled her. With only half an ear open for the tannoy, she’d been thinking about the time she’d just enjoyed with her mother and how much she regretted producing the newspaper cuttings right at the end of her visit. It was a bad mistake; too much of a bombshell. She could see that clearly now. She should have shown them to her sooner, maybe in the café, not then, not when she was so close to catching her train.

  Tired from the walk back up the hill, she had found a seat to rest on.

  ‘Forgive the intrusion …’

  When she looked up, the light was behind him so his face was in shadow. She didn’t know him so she lowered her eyes without speaking. Obviously some chap trying to pick her up. She’d heard of people like him, preying on young girls at stations. They usually hung around places like Victoria Station in London, or King’s Cross or St Pancras, on the look-out for run-aways or girls on their own. The men would befriend them, and after buying them a cup of tea in the refreshment room, th
ey’d offer to find the girl accommodation at a reasonable price. If the offer was accepted, the girl would find herself on a slippery slope to prostitution. The News of the World was full of such stories every Sunday. Izzie turned her head to look at the revolving notice board.

  ‘You probably don’t remember me …’

  Good heavens, he was persistent.

  ‘… but I saw what you did for Giacomo and I just wanted you to know I thought it was admirable.’

  Izzie frowned. For what she’d done? What was he talking about?

  She turned to look at him as he began to move away. It was only then that she recognised him as the man who had stood up to offer her his seat on the train the day Mr Semadini had dropped his wallet on the platform.

  ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry. You must think me very rude. I didn’t realise who you were.’

  He paused and smiled. ‘That’s quite all right. I just wanted you to know how much I admired your honesty.’

  ‘I only did what anyone else would do.’ He hovered awkwardly so she added, ‘Are you catching the Bournemouth train today?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m only going as far as Worthing. That’s where I live.’

  ‘Worthing! But that’s where I live too.’

  ‘Really?’ he said with a smile. ‘May I?’ He lowered himself carefully onto the edge of the other end of the seat.

  They chatted amiably and before long she discovered that his name was Roger Hughes and that he was a cinema projectionist who worked in the Plaza. When the announcement came over the tannoy that their train was on platform one, they walked to the ticket barrier together. Roger opened a train door and stood back for her to enter so it was perfectly natural to sit in the same carriage. By the time they reached Worthing, they seemed like old friends. She’d found out that he was living in digs in Rowlands Road. She told him about her job in the Café Bellissimo and he was delighted to hear that Giacomo had made such a success of it.

  ‘The day I met him, I warned him that he might find it hard to make a go of things in Worthing,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Looks like I was wrong about that.’

  They walked together from the station, and said their goodbyes at the end of Chandos Road. Izzie walked indoors with a smile on her lips. She’d really enjoyed being with him and she was sure he’d liked being with her too, which was why she had been delighted when he asked her out.

  Twenty-Two

  A couple of weeks later, after Izzie ran down the hill from the station to Brighton seafront, she found her mother waiting by the railings. Having crossed the road, they hugged each other, all smiles and ‘how are you’s?’

  Since the war ended, Brighton was a town of contrasts. The rich dined in the Grand Hotel and drank expensive Champagne while the people living in the east of the town on Albion Hill didn’t even have electricity in their homes. Day trippers thronged the front during the summer months but as soon as the autumn temperatures arrived, the queues of coaches waiting to take them back home would be much shorter.

  A small crowd had gathered along the promenade so, curious, Izzie and her mother strolled towards it. Down on the beach a baby elephant and its mother, both the property of Billy Smart’s circus had taken to the waters. They had come by train, part of a herd of fifteen elephants which had paraded down Queen’s Road to the Old Steine the day before. Performances in the big top, which could seat four thousand people, were held daily on The Level. The two women found a small space by the railings and watched the elephants enjoying a few minutes of carefully managed semi-freedom.

  ‘Mum,’ Izzie ventured, ‘you promised to tell me about the cuttings and I want to know what happened between you and Dad.’

  Her mother patted her arm and sighed. ‘I wish you would let it go, love. You shouldn’t be fretting about our past mistakes. It’s all water under the bridge now.’

  ‘I’m not a child anymore,’ Izzie insisted. ‘You don’t need to protect me. Tell me, Mum, please.’

  Doris Baxter turned her head to look out to sea. ‘You’ve read the cuttings so you already know that your father went to prison at the end of 1941,’ she said quietly. ‘And you know what he did. When he came back, he promised me things would be different.’

  ‘But they weren’t.’

  ‘No,’ Doris said bitterly. ‘It only took him five minutes to get up to his old tricks again. That’s why I was upset. I couldn’t bear to go through all that shame and embarrassment again.’

  Izzie frowned. ‘But you were quite happy to go off and leave me and Linda to deal with it,’ she said coldly.

  Doris turned to face her daughter. ‘Is that what your father says?’

  ‘He says you went off with another man,’ said Izzie, ‘that you deserted us and he calls you rude names.’

  Her mother grimaced. ‘Well, it doesn’t surprise me, but it’s just not true.’

  ‘So what did happen, Mum? I want to know your side of the story.’

  ‘Izzie, I’ve always tried to protect you and Linda,’ said Doris. ‘Sometimes I went about it all wrong but I promise you I didn’t just desert you.’

  Her mother took her arm and they began to walk towards West Pier. ‘I was an idiot and I was too young. Your father and I had to get married because he sweet-talked me into going all the way and I ended up having his baby. You. But I can’t simply blame him. It takes two to tango and I certainly never regretted having you.’

  A street photographer took their photograph and stepped in front of them to give them his card. ‘It’ll be ready at the booth,’ he said, pointing in the direction they had just come, ‘by two o’clock this afternoon and at the shop on the corner for a week.’

  Doris took the card and nodded absent-mindedly. The two of them walked on.

  ‘Your father was a market trader. Like I said, we got married and then you came along.’ She looked up and smiled at Izzie. ‘You were such a lovely baby, with a great mop of dark hair and such a cheeky smile.’ Her mother touched Izzie’s cheek lovingly. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

  Izzie felt her throat tighten. It had been a long time since someone had said something so nice to her, and it coming from her mother made it doubly sweet.

  ‘We tried to make a go of it but your father was ambitious. I’m not exactly sure how or when he got in with the wrong crowd and I was too much of a coward to ask, but something told me what he was doing wasn’t kosher.’

  ‘Kosher?’

  ‘Not quite right,’ Doris explained. ‘Not honest.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘There were terrible shortages because of the war and a lot of black market stuff going on. You could make good money so it was easy to get sucked into it but I wasn’t comfortable about it.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell him?’

  ‘Of course I did, Izzie,’ her mother cried in exasperation, ‘but you know your father as well as I do. When he’s got his mind set on something, does he listen?’ She pulled away from her daughter and frowned. ‘Look, if you’re going to keep interrupting me …’

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ Izzie said. Doris reached for her handkerchief and angrily wiped a tear away. ‘Please don’t be cross with me. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  Her mother nodded and Izzie took her arm again.

  ‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down,’ said Doris.

  They found a seat facing the beach within sight of the Victorian bandstand, an octagonal building consisting of eight beautifully decorated cast iron arches, close to the more opulent West Pier. They could hear the band playing but the music wasn’t intrusive. Izzie waited for her mother to begin again.

  ‘Bill’s family came from a long line of villains and thieves,’ said Doris. ‘Stupidly, I thought I could change him.’ She laughed sardonically. ‘I really thought that with a little love, he’d put his old ways behind him.’ She turned her gaze towards the sea. ‘They were trying to shift unregulated meat.’

  Izzie was dying to ask what unregulated meat meant but though
t it better to hold her tongue. Now that her mother was willing to talk she daren’t risk her clamming up again.

  ‘They got hold of some manufacturing meat, the sort of stuff you use for sausages and pies,’ Doris went on, ‘but they had to keep it longer than usual because the inspectors from the Ministry of Food were clamping down on people flouting the rationing rules.’

  ‘And the meat went off,’ said Izzie.

  Doris nodded. ‘It must have done. Your father sold it to a butcher who made sausage rolls for a Christmas party.’ She began to cry. ‘Oh Izzie, it was awful. So many little children and they were so sick.’

  ‘And that’s why he went to prison.’

  Doris nodded again. ‘And what’s even worse, I made a batch using Polly’s secret recipe and gave it to my best friend as a present.’

  ‘Mrs Sayers?’ Izzie said quietly and her mother choked back a sob. Izzie put her arm around her as she wept. Things were starting to fall into place. So Gran was right. Mum and Mrs Sayers had been best friends and her father was partly responsible for the death of Mrs Sayers’ son. No wonder her grandmother didn’t want to talk about it and no wonder Mrs Sayers was so cold towards her.

  Doris dried her eyes and sat up straight. ‘I’m sorry, dear. It still upsets me to think about it, even after all these years.’

  ‘I know, Mum,’ said Izzie. ‘I know.’

  Doris turned to watch the elephants as they walked further up the beach and sighed. ‘When he came out of prison, I just didn’t love him anymore. I tried but I couldn’t bear him touching me,’ she said quietly. ‘He got so frustrated and angry.’

  ‘I heard him the night you left,’ said Izzie. ‘I wish now I’d helped you.’

  Doris caught Izzie’s hand and pressed it to her chest. ‘Darling, you mustn’t blame yourself. You were only a child.’

  ‘I was nearly thirteen,’ Izzie protested.

  ‘A child,’ her mother insisted as she kissed Izzie’s gloved fingers.

  They lapsed into silence and Izzie frowned. ‘So, what did happen the night you ran away?’