by Winona Kent
“Indeed,” Mr. Deeley agreed.
“And do you know, I’ve had ever such a funny feeling, since then, that someone’s been watching me. When I go out. I’ve actually stopped walking and had a good look round, it was that strong a feeling. I’ve not seen anyone… but you just never know, do you?”
She went back into the kitchen to check on the soup, leaving Charlie and Mr. Deeley alone with Artie Shaw.
“Doesn’t this remind you of the Middlehurst Slasher?” Charlie said, quietly.
“I was about to say the very same thing, Mrs. Collins.”
“It’s a coincidence, I’m sure. But still…”
“Is it not also a coincidence,” Mr. Deeley said, “that the woman we met on the platform at Middlehurst Station has the same first name as the woman who lives next door to Betty? And even more strangely, that she was expecting us to arrive?”
“If I didn’t know better, Mr. Deeley, I’d be tempted to say that really was more than a coincidence.”
“And this may seem indelicate of me, Mrs. Collins, but your grandmother does not appear to be married.”
Old habits died hard, and Mr. Deeley was still very much a gentleman of the nineteenth century, in spite of his valiant attempts to embrace the twenty-first.
“She isn’t,” Charlie said. “We always knew Nana was expecting my mum before she married Pete… but I definitely didn’t know she was seeing someone else at the same time. Mum’s never mentioned it. I wonder if she even knows? Or if Pete did? He’s that Spitfire pilot Betty was talking about. They’re due to be married in about two months’ time. Betty’s going to borrow a wedding dress from her aunt, and Pete’s going to be in his RAF uniform.”
“Your grandmother has much in common with Jemima Beckford,” Mr. Deeley remarked, not unkindly. “I confess to some further trepidation. Since we appear to have landed in the same time as the war display in the museum… are we likely to have explosives drop upon our heads from the skies?”
“Hopefully not, Mr. Deeley. I know we’ll be safe here, anyway. This house survived the Blitz quite intact.”
A repeating double ring interrupted their conversation, and Betty rushed out of the kitchen to answer it.
“Telephone,” Charlie explained to Mr. Deeley, as Betty’s animated voice drifted into the dining room from the front hallway. It was a quick conversation.
“Our lodger,” she said, pausing at the open dining room door. “He’s bringing some figs and apples, so we’ll have a proper pudding for afters.”
She returned to the kitchen, the tea kettle, and the soup.
Some minutes later, there was a rat-tat-tat at the front door, followed by the key turning in the lock, and Betty hurried out of the kitchen again.
“Hello, my lovely!”
There was a long pause.
Charlie got up from the table and, curiously, peeked around the open dining room door.
Betty was lost in a passionate kiss and a loving embrace.
Charlie tiptoed back to the table, and Betty brought the lodger into the dining room.
“Here he is,” she said, holding his hand tightly. “My favourite greengrocer. This is Charlotte and this is Shaun, all the way from Stoneford. Pals of Ruby’s. They got caught out in the raid earlier, and now we’re fast friends.”
Betty’s favourite greengrocer was of average height, with dark brown hair, and in his midthirties. He wore a suit jacket and flannel trousers, and underneath, a white shirt and a dark red tie. In his hands he held a flat tweed cap. And he smelled rather nice, Charlie thought. Imperial Leather. She recognized the scent.
He dug into the pockets of his jacket and pulled out two slightly bruised apples and a handful of figs, which he presented to Betty.
“Here you are, my love.”
“I’ll just pop back into the kitchen with these,” Betty said, taking the apples and figs with her.
“Very pleased to meet you,” Charlie ventured.
“As am I,” Mr. Deeley added, politely.
“Thaddeus Quinn,” the lodger replied, with a grin, shaking each of their hands in turn. “And you’ve come all the way from Stoneford? That’s where I’m from—originally, anyway. Where I was born. Jolly pleased to make your acquaintances.”
Chapter Seven
Mr. Deeley could not take his eyes off the dark-haired gentleman.
Neither could Charlie. She watched him open the sideboard and remove a set of Blue Willow china cups and saucers. It was the same Blue Willow china that Nana Betty had nurtured through the decades, and that was still in the sideboard more than seventy years later, nearly intact. One cup cracked and one saucer broken. Minimal chips. They had been lovingly preserved.
“I know of a Thaddeus Quinn,” Mr. Deeley said, with care. “He was born in Stoneford but he grew up in Middlehurst.”
“I was raised in Middlehurst. But I’m almost positive I’ve never met you.”
“When were you born in Stoneford?” Mr. Deeley asked.
“Thirty-four years ago. Eleventh of June.”
“And how long,” Charlie asked, “have you been working for Betty’s father?”
“Not long at all,” Thaddeus said. “How long has it been, Betty?”
“Less than a year,” Betty answered from the kitchen. “December, wasn’t it? Dad was left short-handed when everyone joined up. And you’ve got bad feet, haven’t you, darling? Not fit for duty. Lucky for Dad. And Thad. Goodness, I’ve rhymed.” She laughed. “Here we are!”
She carried a tray from the kitchen with a Blue Willow teapot, a little silver bowl containing her precious ration of sugar, and a small glass bottle one-quarter filled with milk.
“Will you be Mother, Thad?”
“Only if you are,” Thaddeus joked, pouring out the tea. He winked at Charlie and Mr. Deeley. “I had no plans for fatherhood, but there you are. One of these days you’ll have to make an honest man of me, Betty.”
“You only have to ask,” Betty replied.
She gave Thaddeus a quick, but very fond, kiss, and then went to the sideboard, and opened a drawer, and brought out some knitting. Charlie recognized the pattern immediately. It was the front part of the Fair Isle pullover that her grandmother had loaned her for the wartime display at the museum.
“Coat off,” Betty said, and Thaddeus removed his jacket, so that she could hold the unfinished pullover up to his chest to judge how well it was going to fit.
“It’s coming along nicely,” Thaddeus judged. “Soon be finished. Just in time for the cold weather.”
“Just a few more rows,” Betty replied. “I’ll stitch it to the back tonight, if I’m not too tired, and you can have it tomorrow.”
“Lovely,” Thaddeus replied. He looked at Charlie and Mr. Deeley. “Isn’t she marvellous?”
“She is, indeed,” Mr. Deeley replied. “Have you a pattern, Betty?”
“I do.”
She retrieved it from the drawer in the sideboard, a page torn from a women’s magazine, and showed it to Mr. Deeley.
“Excellent,” Mr. Deeley replied, studying it.
“Don’t tell me you know how to knit,” Charlie said.
“I do, in fact.”
“You continue to surprise me, Mr. Deeley.”
“I am not without my uses.”
He returned the pattern to Betty, who put it back in the sideboard drawer, along with the unfinished pullover, and then drew the heavy blackout curtains.
Going back to the kitchen, she returned with the pot of soup, and the minced beef, which she’d fried with some chopped onion and cloves and peppercorns, and a large sliced carrot from the garden.
“Tuck into this,” she said, “before the bloody sirens go off again.”
“Your house won’t be bombed,” Charlie said.
“No?” Betty laughed. “You’re quite sure of that, are you?”
“Quite sure,” Charlie said.
Thaddeus finished his supper quickly, and checked the clock on the mantle over the fi
replace.
“I must be off,” he said. “Space at the tube station’s first come, first served. They start lining up outside at half past two in the afternoon! Too early for me, though I always end up getting my little pitch at the top end of the northbound platform. Also favoured by employees of London Transport.”
“Not spending the night in the Anderson shelter?” Charlie asked, surprised.
“I prefer the tube station,” Thaddeus replied.
He kissed Betty goodbye, and was gone.
“He’s a bit of a snob,” Betty said, confidentially. “He likes to hobnob with the station master. He says it’s good for Dad’s business, but I know better. The air raids terrify him. He feels safer in the Underground.”
• • •
While it was still daylight, Betty made sure the rest of the blackout curtains were drawn throughout the house.
“Don’t want to risk our ARP man Mr. Braden shouting at me to put out the lights,” she said as she took Charlie and Mr. Deeley upstairs. “He’d put the fear of God into anyone, bellowing at you from the road. I’m sure he’s single-handedly got Hitler on the run.”
On the landing at the top of the stairs were four buckets—one empty, two filled with sand, and one with water, along with a small spade and a folded blanket.
“Mind how you go. Dad insists on having them up here in case of firebombs. I think they’d be better downstairs in the front hall, but the Air Raid Precautions pamphlet’s his ruddy bible and he won’t be swayed.”
Charlie smiled. Betty sounded just like her own mother. I know better. He won’t be swayed. It was fascinating.
“I’ll just show you where the bedroom and loo are. Have you not brought any cases with you? Ruby told me you’d be staying the weekend.”
“We did,” Charlie said. “What’s happened to our suitcase, Mr. Deeley? I thought you had it.”
She looked at him askance, her expression not entirely serious.
“I thought you had taken charge of it,” he replied.
“Oh dear,” Betty mused.
“I think, in all of the excitement, we must have left it on the tube,” Charlie concluded, feigning distress, with mixed success. “Mr. Deeley’s never been to London before.”
“Never mind,” Betty said. “I’m sure if you check with London Transport, someone will have handed it in. One of my old uncles once left a glass eye on the seat beside him. God knows what he was thinking, taking it out at Clapham Common. But there it was, a week later, at the Lost Property Office, waiting for him to identify it and claim it. This is the loo.”
Like the dining room, Nana Betty’s bathroom had changed very little in seventy-odd years. The walls were covered, up to eye level, in black and white ceramic tiles. There was a long, deep, enamelled tub; an airing cupboard; a small mirror; and a sink under the window that overlooked the back garden. And there was an old-fashioned toilet, with a wooden seat, an overhead water tank, and a chain that you pulled to flush it.
“I have not seen this before,” said Mr. Deeley.
“Not got one where you come from?” Betty inquired.
“Not of this design,” Mr. Deeley replied.
“Ah,” said Betty, with a knowing nod. “I know what you mean. We’re all modern around here but some of the very old houses, other side of the Common…” She leaned over to whisper confidentially. “Outdoor privies.”
“Ah yes,” said Mr. Deeley, “I recall such conveniences with great clarity. And I am very grateful I must no longer rely upon them when answering the call of nature.”
Betty showed them the large back bedroom. “This is mine,” she said. “And where Junior will be sleeping when he—or she—decides to put in an appearance. I haven’t got a cot yet, but we’ve still got a few months to find one. My cousin’s little girl was born three weeks ago and she’s spent her entire life so far in the pulled-out bottom drawer of her mum’s dressing table!”
And then Betty opened the door to the largest bedroom, at the front of the house, overlooking Harris Road.
“Mum and Dad’s room,” she said. “You two can sleep in here.”
In the present, Charlie knew, this was Nana Betty’s room, the room that she’d died in.
She recognized the white tiled fireplace and the tall oak wardrobe in the corner, which in the present still contained all of Pete’s clothes, and the matching dressing table with its three-part mirror, underneath the windows.
But the comfortable-looking double bed was different, as were the blankets and the pink silk eiderdown.
“Unless you want to join me in the shelter,” Betty added. “I go down there as a matter of habit these days. Saves me getting up in the middle of the night if there’s a raid. If I’m honest, apart from the noise of the bombs, the bloody ack-acks over on the Common frighten the life out of me. And I’d be glad of the company.” She looked a little bashful. “I’m used to Mum and Dad being in the bunk bed.”
“I think we’ll be all right here,” Charlie said.
Betty pulled open her parents’ dressing table and in one drawer discovered a rather fetching nightgown, and in another, a pair of men’s striped pyjamas. “Freshly washed,” she said, holding them up. “I’ll just go and see what we’ve got in the airing cupboard.”
She abandoned them momentarily, and then returned with an armful of sheets and pillowcases, and two towels and two flannels.
“I’ll leave these with you if you want to have a wash. Though it’ll have to be cold water, I’m afraid. The boiler’s coal-fired, and we only put it on for a short time on Sundays, so we can all have a bath. If you’re really desperate for a basin of hot water I can boil the kettle again.”
“This is very generous of you,” Charlie said.
“Nonsense,” Betty replied. “Ruby would do the same for me, if my friends showed up unexpectedly. But if you do change your mind about the shelter, dress warmly. It’s bloody cold once the sun goes down. And damp.”
She left them alone again, and went downstairs.
“Well,” said Charlie, sitting down on the bed beside Mr. Deeley.
“Well indeed,” Mr. Deeley replied. He tucked a feather pillow into its cotton case. “What are we to make of this Thaddeus Quinn, Mrs. Collins? Do you believe this gentleman could be my son?”
Charlie looked at him. “Do you?”
“He does bear a striking resemblance to Jemima. His nose, in particular. And his eyes. And I suspect if you had looked closely, Mrs. Collins, you might have seen my chin, and my mouth.”
Charlie drew a pillowcase over the second feather pillow, and plumped it up on her lap.
“He was very vague about the year of his birth. The day and the month match… but if he is really your son, of course he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone that he was born in 1816. Even if Betty knows his secret—and I doubt she does—he has no idea who you are. Or me. We’re just friends with the woman next door, a couple of people who turned up unexpectedly in the middle of an air raid.”
“There is something more to consider,” Mr. Deeley said, with some hesitation. “If the headstone in the graveyard is correct, then he is destined to die in three days’ time when a bomb drops upon the tube station. He admitted himself that he regularly takes shelter there.”
He stood up, and walked out of the bedroom, and opened the door to the room over the stairs where Thaddeus Quinn slept. It was only a little bigger than a cupboard. It had a window and enough room for a single bed and a chest of drawers. And it had been, for as long as Charlie could remember, the repository for things that weren’t needed anymore, but which Nana Betty could never bring herself to throw away: round cardboard hatboxes and faded cushions, outdated lampshades and discarded books, suitcases with steamer stickers on them and worn-out shoes.
Here and now, in October 1940, it contained nearly all of Thaddeus Oliver Quinn’s earthly possessions.
“To know that I will lose my son—whom I have only just now met for the first time—is devastating enough. Bu
t even worse than that is the knowledge that he is the father of the child Betty is carrying. For that would make you, Mrs. Collins, my great-granddaughter. And I am not altogether certain that I am able to come to terms with that. It is a tragedy beyond all comprehension.”
He sat down upon the narrow single bed.
“I shall sleep here… lest the temptation of sharing your bed, Mrs. Collins, lead me to act in a way that both of us might quickly regret.”
Chapter Eight
Moaning Minnie had not woken Charlie from the deepest of sleeps. Nor had the drone and heavy throb of the German planes approaching. Not even the whistling drop of the bombs and the incendiaries, faintly and in the distance at first, and then louder and closer, shaking the very foundations of the house.
What did wake Charlie was the monumental explosion across the road as Mrs. Crofton at Number Twelve received a direct hit.
The resulting blast shattered the glass in the windows of the bedroom where Charlie was sleeping. The protective paper tape criss-crossing the panes prevented the larger shards from exploding inward, as did Marjorie Singleton’s best lace net curtains and the heavy blackout material that Betty had made sure was pulled across at sunset. But the metal window frame was twisted off its hinges. And small fragments of glass had shot across the bedroom through the gaps as the blast had blown the fabric aside.
And Charlie had woken up screaming.
Glass and dust and bits of metal and brick covered the bottom half of her bed. The room was filled with smoke and the smell of high explosives. The triple mirror on top of the dressing table was bent over, its panels split. And through the vertical gap in the blackout curtain, Charlie could see the flicker of flames.
And then Mr. Deeley was by her side, holding her. She could feel his heart beating as hard as her own, and his breathing was heavy and frightened.
“I didn’t know,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry. I knew this house was never hit. I didn’t know about the one across the road.”
“Have you been injured?”
“No,” Charlie said. “No. Just scared to bloody death. What about you?”