by Maureen Lee
‘I took English,’ she said brightly, tossing her golden curls and fluttering her eyelashes like a mad woman, ‘and I intend to become a writer myself one day. I shall write murder mysteries like Agatha Christie and sell thousands of copies of my books.’
‘Aren’t you a clever girl,’ Gladys said unctuously.
Freda rolled her eyes and didn’t say anything. She was trying to work out if Tom was in any way romantically involved with Evelyn, and realised that he was when they left together holding hands.
She felt totally betrayed. Was Tom so blind that he was unable to detect how much she loved him? That they were meant for each other?
Her mother had started to clear the dishes off the table. ‘Well, she was a nice young lady,’ she remarked. ‘Talks ever so posh. I suppose that’s only to be expected, her being related to a nun, like. Where are you going?’ she cried when Freda leapt to her feet and made for the front door.
‘I won’t be long,’ Freda shouted before slamming the door behind her.
She ran all the way to the police station in Marsh Lane, where she reported that the man living at 14 Pearl Street was a deserter from the army. Either that or he’d avoided joining in the first place. ‘His name’s Thomas Chance,’ she informed the sergeant behind the desk.
‘And what’s your name, miss?’ He was writing things in a book.
‘Evelyn Jones.’
The sergeant came to the house the following evening. Freda hid in the back kitchen when her mother opened the door and he announced himself.
‘We checked, and he’s not a deserter,’ the policeman informed a somewhat mystified Gladys. ‘In fact he’s something of a hero. It’s a wonder he’s still alive after what he went through.’
‘Why, what did he go through?’ Gladys enquired.
‘He was at Dunkirk. He was rescued by a boat that the Jerries then sank, throwing everyone on board into the water. Lieutenant Chance swam around rescuing as many of his men as he could, despite being badly injured himself.’ The policeman’s voice throbbed with pride. ‘He was given a medal, but had to be invalided out of the army, his lungs being damaged, like, and there were quite a few other internal injuries. So,’ he continued huffily, ‘you can just tell Miss Evelyn Jones that Thomas Chance is no deserter.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ Gladys promised.
The door closed and Gladys found her daughter in the kitchen sobbing her heart out. ‘I love him, Mam,’ she wailed. ‘I really love him.’
‘Well that’s an odd way of treating someone you love, reporting him to the bobbies and pretending to be his girlfriend.’ Gladys folded her arms and looked sternly at her daughter, and a strange thing happened. It seemed as if that was the minute everything changed, and Gladys assumed her natural role as a mother while Freda returned to being a child.
The following day, Tom Chance gave in his notice and announced that he was moving on. He didn’t say where to. Whether he learnt about Freda’s visit to the police station she didn’t know, but she thought he looked at her rather sadly, as if he felt she’d let him down.
At the Co-op, her mother was promoted to assistant manageress of the vegetable section and given a five-shillings-a-week rise.
From time to time, Freda would go into town and walk the Seven Streets, hoping to come across Tom Chance, but she never laid eyes on him again.
Chapter 8
Lena didn’t mind the disruption Kitty and Rosie’s presence caused to her life – in fact, she welcomed it. They shared rations, and most nights Kitty would have a meal ready for when Lena came home from work. Sometimes Lena would get Rosie ready for bed and give her the final bottle of the day, which she really loved doing. When it was dark, Kitty might go for a walk or to see Brenda, or Phyllis would come and talk about women’s rights and all the wonderful things she was going to do when she got older, changing her mind frequently and impressing the other women no end.
There was one part of Lena’s life that remained untouched, the covert part that no one knew about: she continued to meet George Ransome at the Palace on Saturday nights, and sometimes Sundays too, depending on what picture was showing. Afterwards they would go to the Crown for a drink. Lena had taken to drinking sherry, which made her feel dizzy as well as rather sophisticated.
Naturally, she had never mentioned Kitty to George, not that she thought he would be shocked that she’d had an illegitimate child; he wasn’t that sort of person. She’d got the impression from their conversations that he wasn’t remotely narrow-minded – and she hadn’t forgotten those notorious parties she’d been told he used to have!
One night, however, in the Crown, Lena yawned halfway through her sherry, and apologised by saying, ‘Sorry, Rosie woke me up awfully early this morning.’
‘Who’s Rosie?’ asked George.
It wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth, Lena thought. In fact, it might be an advantage to have a man in on the secret.
In a low voice, interrupted by the occasional hiccup, she told him about Kitty and Rosie turning up a few weeks ago and sleeping downstairs from where she lived. ‘In the dairy part,’ she finished.
George frowned and said in a very slow voice, ‘When you say Kitty, do you mean Kitty Quigley who used to live at number twenty – her dad, Jimmy, still does?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ She wondered why he was speaking in such an odd way.
‘Why isn’t she back with her dad? What’s she doing living in the dairy? It’s a dump, that place. Least the downstairs part is.’
‘Well, there’s Rosie,’ Lena stammered, aware that something was wrong. ‘Kitty isn’t married and she’s got Rosie.’
‘I see,’ George said, even more slowly. ‘What are her plans?’
‘Her plans?’ What were Kitty’s plans? Brenda was forever listing them for her. ‘She has to make up her mind whether to go and live with her dad,’ she told George, ‘which means Rosie will be called a little bastard. Or she can go away and get a job and someone to look after Rose, or find a fella.’ Ordinarily Lena wouldn’t have dreamt of saying ‘find a fella’, but that was how Brenda put it. The way George was speaking was making her feel nervous.
‘Do you mind if we go home?’ he asked.
‘Not at all.’ Lena fumbled with her gloves, putting them on the wrong hands and leaving behind half her sherry.
George walked home much too quickly and she had to keep running to catch up. Once in Pearl Street, he stopped outside the dairy and said, ‘Will you please ask Kitty if she’ll see me?’
‘Yes, George,’ Lena said timidly. She unlocked the door.
As expected, Kitty was upstairs in the flat. As she climbed the stairs, Lena had the strongest feeling that tonight was the last time she would go to the pictures with George Ransome.
‘Now, are you sure?’ Brenda made the sternest face imaginable.
‘I think I’m sure,’ Kitty said, grinning stupidly.
‘You have to know you’re sure.’
‘All right, so I know I’m sure.’
‘Are you really sure?’ Brenda banged her fist on the arm of the chair.
Phyllis laughed. ‘Now you’re going round in circles. Me, I think it’s terribly romantic. Have you always loved him, Kitty?’
‘Not real love. I think it’s called calf love. I had a terrible crush on him from when I was about ten.’
‘We all did,’ said Brenda, soppy all of a sudden. ‘Me, Kitty and Sheila. We all wanted to marry him one day, or at least be invited to one of his parties when we grew up.’
‘And now Kitty’s been invited to marry him!’ Phyllis clapped her hands. ‘Did it not cross your mind to propose to him?’
Kitty laughed. ‘Never in a million years.’
‘Don’t be daft, girl,’ said Brenda.
Lena wasn’t saying anything. She couldn’t think of anything she could contribute to the conversation. It was too sudden, too unexpected, too crazy. George Ransome had asked Kitty Quigley to marry him! Apparently he had always fancied he
r, but she had seemed too young for him in those days.
‘There’s still the same age difference,’ Brenda had pointed out.
‘Somehow me being thirty and him fifty seems perfectly acceptable. In a way, it’s like a dream come true.’ Kitty blushed. ‘Much better than the other two alternatives you suggested, Bren.’
People wanted to make a scandal out of it, but found it impossible. Everyone liked George, the women because he was so attractive and the men because he’d managed to reach the age of fifty while having a whale of a time. And now he was marrying Kitty Quigley, who was young enough to be his daughter but at the same time had a daughter herself. Rumours abounded that Kitty was a widow, or had divorced the Yank she used to go out with, rumours that nobody believed; or, it was whispered, she’d got up to no good with the Yank and Rosie was the result. It was weird, bloody weird, but all everyone could do was wish the couple well and look forward to the wedding.
Kitty and George were married on the last Saturday in September. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, with the old oaks in the churchyard dressed like Christmas trees in rich golden leaves. The white, pink and yellow rose petals that were scattered over the married couple when they emerged from the church came from Eileen Stephens’s garden. It seemed unfair that brides weren’t allowed extra coupons for their wedding dress and trousseau, but Kitty looked beautiful in a magnificent dress made by her friend Brenda out of an old, well-bleached white cotton sheet and a piece of lace curtain.
The street could put on a show when it wanted to. Pasting tables were erected here and there, sandwiches were distributed, biscuits bought, cakes baked, lemonade made for the children, and to crown it all, not just a sliver of wedding cake for every single person, but champagne too. George was the sort of person who could get things that other people found impossible, and he wasn’t short of a few bob either. Frankly, apart from the novelty, not everyone liked the champagne. It was too fizzy, not sweet enough. It ended up being mixed with beer or sherry, and the folk who were inclined to get drunk on these occasions got drunk much quicker and toasted each other to death.
The happily married couple departed for their honeymoon in London at five o’clock, leaving Pearl Street to enjoy itself until long past midnight. There was a certain coldness that went unnoticed between Sheila Reilly and Brenda Mahon when the former discovered that the latter had known about Kitty’s return many weeks before, but by next morning everything had returned to normal and they were best friends again.
Eileen Stephens always got up at half past five when Kate was on the morning shift to make her tea and toast. She appreciated her bed more than usual when she got back into it after her lodger had left. She either read a book for an hour or so, or fell back asleep, to be woken by Nicky throwing himself on top of her. When she got up again, she did the housework, and usually spent half an hour or so sewing – since clothes and bedding had become rationed, women spent a large amount of their time patching and darning: ‘turning’ sheets so the unworn part became the middle, letting down or taking up hems, reversing collars, repairing frayed cuffs, darning socks over and over, until sometimes there was more darn than sock.
Afterwards, she would shop for the few things that could be bought locally, such as milk, eggs and vegetables, usually walking into the village with Nicky attached to his reins – he was inclined to want to stop the occasional car by throwing himself suicidally in front of it. They would pass the little school that became a Catholic church on Sundays, where Nicky would be a pupil one day. At least, Eileen hoped so. Life in the future, even the present, seemed somewhat tenuous these days. She wondered if, after the war was over. Nick would suggest they all move to London. Would they have a life together when there was no longer a war to keep them apart?
When Kate returned home just after two, they would often catch the bus to the shops in Walton Vale to get the weekly rations and have a coffee in Sayers. If there was a film on that appealed to them they would go to one of the picture houses. Nicky had already shown a total lack of interest in any sort of film and would instantly fall asleep.
When Kate worked afternoons, from two till ten, Eileen’s life did an abrupt turn-around and the morning’s tasks were undertaken in the afternoon and vice versa, though the pictures were out.
She liked having a pattern to her life. Before Kate’s arrival, everything had been a muddle: now it felt more ordered. She knew where she was, as it were.
In the evenings, whatever shift Kate was on, Eileen would make them cocoa and they would listen to the BBC news, then chat till midnight. Although Kate was forever vowing that she would go to bed much earlier, she never did.
Kate’s daughters were growing older. They wanted to know why their mother didn’t live at home, and were no longer willing to be fobbed off with their father’s excuses. He had told them she had abandoned them; that she’d had numerous affairs; that she didn’t care about her children. None of this was true.
The eldest, Lily, had already written to her mother, and Kate had written back. ‘I tried not to be too emotional in my letter,’ she told Eileen. ‘I didn’t want to frighten her off by saying how much I loved all three of them, how much I missed them. Because I do,’ she said. ‘I miss them so much it genuinely makes my heart ache. But because of Ralph, I’ve not been around while my three lovely girls have been growing up.’
For the first time, Eileen mentioned her suspicion that Nick might be having an affair down in London. ‘Either that, or he’s completely gone off me. He hardly ever comes home, and when he does, he’s terribly cold and distant.’
Kate could scarcely believe it. ‘But, Eileen, no couple could have loved each other more than you and Nick. It was obvious for all the world to see. I used to envy you so much.’
Eileen shrugged. ‘It’s because of his arm. The war brought us together, and the war is driving us apart. He thinks I’ve gone off him, when in fact I only love him more.’
In Pearl Street, Maurice Newton was home from sea. Lena was conscious of how dull the place was with him there when compared to Cal Reilly’s occasional periods at home with his wife and family. Whereas Cal and Sheila were all over each other, in front of anyone else who happened to be there, Maurice hardly touched Lena except in bed, when it was all over in a jiffy, and he didn’t so much as kiss her at any time during the proceedings.
Lena hadn’t minded in Birmingham – this was what marriage must be like for everyone, she had assumed – but since coming to Pearl Street, she’d realised that wasn’t true. There must be more to it than she knew. It was called ‘making love’, but she was positive that she had never made love with Maurice, not properly. They just went through the motions. There was nothing romantic or passionate about it. Lena yearned for passion and romance, but didn’t think she would ever experience it with Maurice.
Brenda came one day and remarked afterwards how attractive he was.
Lena was amazed. ‘Attractive!’ Maurice was a solid, well-built man with sandy hair and light brown eyes. She had never thought that a person could be described as looking boring, but now she thought Maurice did. She had never found him attractive. She wondered what his opinion was of her.
‘You sound surprised,’ Brenda said. ‘I used to think my Xavier looked a bit like a rat, but other women quite fancied him, to the extent that one actually married him. She didn’t know he was already married, poor thing. Her name was Carrie and we became great friends for a while. We still write to each other.’
It riled Lena when Kitty – now Kitty Ransome – asked if she’d mind babysitting one Saturday night while she and George went to the Palace in Marsh Lane.
‘The Man in Grey with James Mason is on. I’m longing to see it. George said it got marvellous reviews. He gets this American magazine off someone at work. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s all about the latest pictures – movies, they call them. We’ll pay you, of course.’
‘I’m afraid I already have an appointment on Saturday,’ Lena
said stiffly. ‘Why not ask Phyllis? She’d really appreciate the money.’ She was even more offended at being offered money than at being asked to babysit. It wasn’t that she’d ever visualised any sort of future with George Ransome, but she had felt for a while that they had slightly more than a casual friendship. But this had turned out not to be the case, and she couldn’t help but feel let down.
In London, Nick Stephens discovered that the hotel off Park Lane where he’d spent a weekend with Eileen and Tony in the first year of the war had been bombed to rubble in the Blitz. In his troubled mind it felt as if their past life together was being destroyed and the present was slowly crumbling away to nothing.
One moonless evening in December, he wandered along Oxford Street in the blackout and recalled the years before the war when the West End was brilliantly lit, the shops vying with each other to have the brightest lights and the gaudiest decorations. The windows were still beautifully done, but now that night had fallen they could no longer be seen. Oxford Street had become a place of ghosts, some of the buildings turned into jagged skeletons of their former selves. Several of the big shops had been bombed, and John Lewis was a total wreck. Nick found it infinitely depressing. Perhaps everyone felt the same. The street was almost deserted; people must have hidden themselves inside shops, restaurants, bars and theatres.
The East End, where poor people lived, had suffered far more savagely. Nick never forgot that, but he worked in the West End, where the result of Hitler’s bombing campaign could be witnessed every day.
He was supposedly searching for a present for Nicky, and something for Eileen too. At the same time, he wanted to buy a gift for Doria Mallory, who had recently informed him that she was expecting his child.
‘I’ll get rid of it if you like,’ she had said after breaking the news.