by Lizzie Lane
At mention of the farm and his parents, James nodded. ‘I see.’
Bridget could see his prickliness had lessened but was in no doubt that he sensed Lyndon was more than a friend. The rest of the conversation circled around how James had felt on coming home, what his family thought, how both he and they would manage when the war was finally over. This last question – how he would manage – obviously hit a raw nerve.
‘As best I can,’ James said grimly and his eyes locked with hers.
Every inch the professional, acting on behalf of his country, Lyndon gave no indication that he knew about the fleeting relationship between Bridget and James.
The visit and the notetaking eventually came to a close. A brief goodnight and they headed for the door.
Bridget tried not to feel prickly at James’s behaviour, but it did annoy her that he’d made it seem as though they were engaged when it wasn’t true at all. Her first impulse was to go back in there and sort it out, but what good would that do? James was feeling sorry for himself and lashing out, muddying the waters, acting like a spoilt child. Because his life had been spoilt he wanted to spoil it for everyone else’. Laying her frustration aside, she adopted a business like air. ‘I trust that was useful to you?’
Lyndon said that it was.
For some time, their footsteps echoed along the bare corridors. The working day was over by the time they left the hospital. The night was dark, but Lyndon had his own car hired by his country’s government so that he might more easily facilitate the work asked of him.
Not a word was said until they were parked outside her home in Marksbury Road.
When he turned the lights off, it left them in total darkness. It felt to her as though they were submerged in ink.
The flame from his lighter fell onto his features. He lit a cigar and wound down the window. The night air drifted in as the smoke drifted out. ‘It’s great to see you again.’
‘You too.’
‘You do mean it, don’t you?’
She knew what he was referring to and threw herself into his arms.
‘Yes. Yes, I do love you.’
‘Bridget. You’re fixed in my mind.’
She nodded. ‘And you in mine.’
‘I can understand how it happened – you and James. My own stupid fault, telling you about my folks plans to get me married.’
He threw the unfinished cigar out of the window and hugged her closer, kissed her hair, her ear, her nose and then her mouth.
Over his shoulder she fancied movement by the front door. Her father was out making sure she was all right.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Your old man’s waiting by the front door. Am I right?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Because if I had a daughter as beautiful as you, I’d be doing the goddam same.’
She laughed then pushed open the door and got out.
She couldn’t be unkind to James, but the path to her future was clearing. Lyndon was back and although she did feel slightly obliged to James she had to commit herself one way or another.
A postcard arrived from Phyllis:
Darling, having a whale of a time and answerable to nobody. I’ve been declared top of my class and given another promotion. It’s been confirmed they’re sending me abroad. I’m excited. Take this advice from me. Be true to yourself.
Best of love to you.
PS. This card is for you and Maisie. I need to save on stamps.
‘Sounds as though she’s enjoying herself,’ said Maisie, flipping the card this way and that as if by doing so they could tell what she was up to.
Four words above all others burned into Bridget’s mind.
Be true to yourself.
The rest of that day might have passed in a blur if some special things hadn’t happened. The first was a message from Miss Cayford, inviting her along to her office.
It was well known that Miss Cayford had quite a few house plants growing in pots on top of her filing cabinets. Bridget recognised the plants growing there now as winter greens and carrots – in pots! Things were certainly changing fast.
‘Do sit down,’ said Miss Cayford, flicking open a file in front of her.
Bridget did so, wondering all the time what was happening here.
‘You haven’t joined any of the women’s military services, have you?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’ve got younger brothers and sisters though they have been evacuated. My help is sometimes needed at home. And my father was invalided out of the merchant navy in the last war.’
Miss Cayford nodded. ‘I see. Well, I must say we appreciate you still being here, which is why I called you in.’ She leaned back in her chair, fingers intertwined and a very satisfied look on her face. ‘I’m offering you promotion to the packing department. It’s a little more money of course. Can you show me your hands?’
Bridget did as requested, already knowing that anyone with dirty fingernails would not be allowed to become a cigarette packer. Luckily for her she had just been to the ladies’ cloakroom so her fingernails were pristine despite having been stripping leaves all morning.
Miss Cayford turned her hands over and inspected her palms. ‘Very satisfactory,’ she said at last. ‘The job is yours.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
Miss Cayford frowned. She’d never had a girl turn down a promotion. ‘Yes. Of course you do, but be warned, if you do turn it down, there might not be a second chance.’
A second chance, she thought as she came away.
Maisie almost knocked her over, face alive with curiosity. ‘What did she want you for? Promotion? It’s got to be. Have you accepted?’
Bridget took in Maisie’s avid enthusiasm. ‘How could I possibly leave you in the stripping room all by yourself! You’ll get into trouble in no time.’
Maisie looked quite taken aback. ‘Go on! I don’t believe you.’
Bridget smiled. ‘Yes. I’ve got a promotion.’
‘What about the men in your life? What’s ‘appening?’
‘I’m seeing both of them tonight.’
‘Greedy girl!’
‘First one and then the other. You’re a cheeky mare, Maisie Miles!’
Maisie offered to go with her to the hospital, but Bridget declined. There was much thinking to do on the way there and just as much – if not more – on the way back.
Although it was still daylight, the sky was leaden and the weather truly awful. The buses were crowded, condensation running down the windows and rising in a steamy fug from wet coats and hats. Water ran in rivulets over the gnarled pavements and beat on ruined buildings and piles of debris.
The wet and wintry gale tugged at the hem of her skirt, her stockings clung damply to her legs and her shoes were soaked.
Just before she reached the doors to the ward where James was lying, she chanced on the ward sister coming out.
‘I know I’m early, but is it possible that I can go in and see him?’
The ward sister, a woman of mature years with tightly permed grey hair, eyed her sidelong. ‘I’m sorry but he already has a visitor. We’re only allowing one at a time until he’s more recovered.’
She spoke hesitantly and there was pity in her eyes.
‘Perhaps I could wait?’
The woman looked thoughtful, came to a decision and nodded. ‘Just as long as you keep out of the way.’
Time ticked away. There were no chairs, but she didn’t mind. At least I’ve got my legs, she thought. She looked through one of the round windows. A screen pulled halfway across the ward prevented her from seeing James or his visitor. He’d said that one of his friends from the base was coming in regularly. She vaguely recalled him saying the friend was on leave.
Judging by the wall clock, its thick black hands jerking round over the seconds and minutes, it was getting close to her normal time of arrival.
Just as the big hand locked into place, she became aware of footsteps coming t
owards her on the other side of the doors. Readying herself to enter, she stepped forward. The doors swung open.
The young woman who came out wore the uniform of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force of the same dark blue as the men. She was pretty, blonde and had a trim figure.
For a moment their eyes met and they exchanged a fleeting smile. Then she was gone.
Suddenly Bridget felt as though she’d awoken from a deep sleep. In her mind, she ploughed through a whole raft of questions as she entered the ward. It was only a short space to James’s bed, but enough time for things to solidify.
Sensing her approach, his eyes flashed open. There was no smile and neither was he moved to explain that he’d already had a visitor – another female visitor.
‘Not got your American with you.’ He sounded contemptuous, yet at no time had Lyndon been that way towards him and it riled her.
‘He’s only trying to help.’
‘If he wants to help me, tell him to bring a pair of legs with him next time,’ he grumbled. His attitude was incredibly hurtful and she fancied it had a purpose.
‘You’re more of a coward than I thought,’ she said, both hands clasping her handbag.
A nerve flickered beneath one eye and puckered his jawline. His look was piercing.
‘If you think that, what are you doing here?’
Pity evaporated and she now felt a great sense of release. ‘I saw your friend. She’s very pretty. How much pity do you want? How many girlfriends do you have visiting you? How many women fawning over you will it take to make you feel better?’
There wasn’t a flicker of response. His jaw remained rigid and those bright blue eyes were as frozen as a lake in winter.
When they’d first met his handsome features had reminded her of Lyndon. She could now see differences, a selfish brooding look on his face. She sensed his manner would become manipulative over time, his character more self centred.
‘I still need you, Bridget. We have something special.’
She shook her head. ‘James, all we ever had was one solitary night when I lost self-control because it came home to me that in war there’s not necessarily going to be a tomorrow for any of us.’
‘Never mind,’ he said petulantly. ‘I’ve still got Deirdre. That’s the name of that pretty little blonde you’ve just seen leave. She won’t let me down. Not like you.’ There was spite in the way he said it and told her all she needed to know.
Bridget smiled and readied her handbag and her umbrella. ‘Then good luck to you and Deirdre. Goodbye, James. Good luck.’
Once outside the hospital, the heavy rain that had stayed in all day was gone and the afternoon sun was shining.
Some way ahead of her a rainbow formed a bridge between The Horsefair and Stokes Croft where Lyndon awaited her. She’d read that a rainbow prophesied a new beginning. It was enough for her, at least for now.
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Chapter One
Slight of stature, dark-haired and dark-eyed, fifteen-year-old Maisie Miles was currently engrossed in a world of her own. Though the newspaper sellers and the wireless shouted warnings of war to come, it meant nothing to her.
The world, her surroundings and everything else, was blanked out by the letter she’d almost snatched from the postman’s hand. She’d bobbed out of that front door ten times at least that morning, waiting for him to come so she could grab the letter before he had chance to shove it through the letter box. Hopefully it would be her ticket out of York Street, the Dings and the larger area that was St Phillips’ Marsh.
The envelope was blue, the paper of a quality she’d never encountered before. The letter inside matched the envelope both in colour and quality.
Her brown eyes glowed and her creamy complexion burst into pinkness as she read the letter for the third time.
Dear Miss Miles,
In response to the reference I received from your teacher Miss Smith, and the fact that since leaving school you have experienced some domestic work in the kitchen of the Royal Hotel, in Bristol, I am delighted to offer you the position of kitchen maid at Priory House, Long Ashton, which, as I am sure you know, is just outside the city of Bristol and not far from Ashton Court…
Feeling sublimely happy, Maisie closed her eyes and held the letter to her heart. Bliss. Green fields and trees. She’d never been to Ashton Court, but the redoubtable Miss Smith had told her that the sumptuous mansion had been built with the proceeds of a vast sugar plantation on the island of Jamaica.
The letter had come from the housekeeper who was known personally to Miss Smith.
‘A much respected acquaintance,’ she had told Maisie. ‘It’s a private house, so only glimpsed through the gates.’
It was obvious from her tone that Miss Smith herself had never been into the house but would very much like to.
For her part, Maisie wasn’t interested in the house. It was the prospect of fresh air far away from the stink of York Street which attracted her.
The house she’d grown up in was situated in the Dings, a subdistrict of St Phillips, a less than salubrious area of Bristol, where the air was thick with the stench of bone yards, soap works and slaughter houses.
Added to the cloying stench was the deafening rattle from the marshalling yards stretching from Midland Road to Lawrence Hill, a sprawling expanse of glistening rails linking the Great Western Railway with the Midland Railway. Like the smell, the railway never ceased: the goods trucks shunting backwards and forwards, chains clanking, metal rails squealing beneath metal wheels. Of late it had been busier and nosier than usual. The old man, the old sod, her father, declared it was all to do with impending war because it said so in the papers. As if he would know! She’d never seen him read anything. It was more likely he’d heard the newspaper vendor shouting out the news from his pitch outside the Kings’ Cinema in Old Market.
Maisie didn’t care. All she wanted was to get away to something better.
There was nothing attractive about number five, York Street. It had a yard at the back, a patch of dusty dirt between the back of the house and the brick privy that lurched against the far wall. It was a place of mouldy walls and cramped rooms, packed with shabby furniture and a cold hearth that even when lit did little to warm one room, let alone the whole house.
‘What you got there?’ Suddenly the very air was ripe with menace.
Absorbed in the letter and her future, she hadn’t heard her father, Frank Miles, rouse himself from the old cracked sofa in the living room.
Pushing her with one hefty hand, he grabbed the letter with the other.
Maisie did her best to snatch it back, but was brushed so roughly aside that she crashed heavily against the wall and a patch of flaking plaster crumpled into her hair.
Bleary-eyed, he blinked at the letter, mouthing the words as he read each one like a child who cannot quite understand his letters.
‘What the bleedin’ ’ell’s this about then?’
His accent was heavy. His flabby jowls quivered and his bloodshot eyes fixed her with a familiar look, the kind usually followed with a cuff round the ear or a punch to her shoulder. In his youth, he might have been a handsome man, but booze and smoking, plus the advent of age, had blunted all that.
The circumstances of her upbringing and ongoing abuse had toughened Maisie. She gathered her courage, folded her arms in front of her and held
her chin high. He scared her, but to show fear would only make things worse.
‘I’ve got a job in Long Ashton as a kitchen maid. I’ll be living in. The job at the Royal was alright, but this is better. You won’t have to keep me any longer and you’ll have more room.’ Pointing out the advantages to him was the only hope she had of getting him to fall in with what she wanted.
For a moment, he stared at her, then burst out laughing.
‘You ain’t goin’ anywhere! Think I’ve kept you all these bloody years to be a kitchen maid? I want paying back, so you, my girl, is going to work at Wills’s. I wants yer wages and I wants the free fags you’ll be getting.’
Fear seeped into her defiance, but Maisie still managed to shake her head. ‘I ain’t working in a factory. I wants to go and live in the country. That’s what I’m going to do.’
Frank Miles’s fleshy lips sprawled into a cruel grin. His face was greasy with sweat. ‘Well, you ain’t doing that.’ His tone was spiced with the pleasure he derived from being cruel, as there, before her very eyes, he tore the letter into quarters, struck a match and set it alight.
‘No!’ Maisie sprang forward, stabbing her fingers into the flame but was too late to save a single word. The letter that had promised her a different world fluttered like black feathers to the floor.
In a trice, her father took hold of her by the throat with one meaty hand. His eyes glared into hers. ‘You owe me for looking after you. Now I wants me dues.’
She grabbed at his hand, trying to unwind those fingers from her throat before he squeezed the life out of her. Her mouth opened and shut like a fish gasping for air.
‘I’m your daughter,’ she wanted to shout, but it came out as a faltering gasp.
‘Are you?’ he snarled. ‘Are you?’