by Jane Bailey
I took the scrapbook back to Our Dad, who didn’t know it had gone missing. Mam baked me an apple batter, got all the neighbours round to see me, and they all gawped at my new hairstyle and said, ‘She da talk proper posh now.’
I’m ashamed when I think of that visit. I think I may have been critical about the lack of fruit and salad in the house and the use of ketchup on everything and garlic in nothing. I probably – oh, I cringe to think of it – insisted on drinking from a bowl in the mornings, rejected my cornflakes and turned my nose up at sliced bread. What a little prat I must have been. It must have really hurt Our Mam and Dad, but they didn’t show it.
On the Sunday I refused to go to chapel with them, saying I didn’t believe in God any more. Our Mam was worried for my soul. Our Dad was upset too, but I think with him it was the ‘any more’ which hurt, suggesting to his mind that I had outgrown something which he, by inference, was childishly clinging on to. I’m not sure I saw all this then, any more than I understood what my indifference cost my mother when, a day or two into my visit, she placed on the table in front of me some lettuce from Mr Price’s allotment and a bottle of salad cream, a modest and expectant smile on her face.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I made it to the wedding. I moved back to the flat in Cheltenham, and on Saturday the 21st of September 1952, I was there at the wedding of Daphne Prendergast and Jack Heggarty.
I timed my arrival carefully. I didn’t want to have to turn around in the church to see if Arthur had arrived, so I made certain I was there only just in time, with three minutes to spare before the service. I sat in a pew behind the rest of the congregation, alongside an elderly lady who must have been some relative or friend of Daphne or Jack.
I couldn’t see Arthur from where I was, but there were quite a few heads in the way. If he was there – and Daphne had said he would be – he would see me walking out of church ahead of him. Then it would be up to Arthur. I was certainly not going to approach him.
31
ARTHUR
I reached the venue for the wedding early, so before the church service I slipped into the Wayfarer’s Inn for a drink. The groom was there with some of the other guests, and he offered me a pint.
Till my dying breath, I will wish Jack Heggarty had never spoken to me on his wedding day. That conversation will haunt me.
It was light-hearted enough. It was well intentioned. Jack asked me how I was and I told him. I asked where they were going to live, and he told me Battersea. He asked about work and where I was living now, and I told him. I congratulated him on his fine choice of wife, and he asked if I was married yet.
‘I am, actually.’
‘Wonderful! Have you brought her with you?’
‘Er, no. She’s five months pregnant.’
‘Congratulations!’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Not Dora then. There was some talk a while back . . .’
‘Ah . . . well . . . yes, actually . . . actually it’s Pippa.’
‘Philippa? From Boat Nine?’ His eyes widened. ‘Phwoar! You did all right, matey. Bit of a stunner as I recall from the last reunion. Well! You don’t waste much time! Bit of a dark horse, eh?’ He winked at me. He was in a jovial mood. It was his wedding day.
‘The thing is—’
I really don’t know what I was going to say. I wasn’t going to apologize for marrying Pippa. What sort of man was I? I smiled weakly as he was overwhelmed by a group of men offering him a drink, and I was left awkwardly marooned.
I arrived at the church deliberately late, with just two minutes to go before the ceremony. I didn’t want to make small talk beforehand with people from the boat; someone was sure to have heard news of Dora, and I needed to prepare myself. There would be time for all that later back at the pub.
I sat down in the last pew with anyone in it: an elderly gentleman I didn’t recognize. He must have been somebody’s relative. The church was echoey with chatter, and I felt happily anonymous at the back. The organ music changed suddenly to a rousing piece, and voices hushed. I turned my head to the left to see Daphne, dressed in a modest ivory outfit, walking gracefully up the aisle, unaccompanied. I couldn’t see Jack – there were too many heads in the way – but when the organ music finished and we were asked to be seated, I could see him standing and beaming at the front of the church, unfamiliar in a tailored suit.
The words of the service passed me in a sort of blur. I fixed my attention on the neck of the girl sitting a couple of pews in front of me. Her skin was golden brown and swept down to a wide semi-circle of pale print fabric at her neckline. It swept up to the softest nape, topped with velvety short fair hair. On the crown of her head, the hair was honey pale. As it reached her neck it formed the gentlest of peaks, pointing to her very slightly protruding vertebrae . . . and therefore not to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, inadvisedly, lightly or wantonly . . . When she stood for a hymn she displayed her whole back. The wide folds of the skirt narrowed into a belt at her slender waist. The backs of her arms showed under her little capped sleeves, and they were soft and smooth. Her face and hands were invisible, but I tried to imagine them, and I had to check myself. By the time we stood for the next hymn (‘Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken’), I realized I was having very inappropriate thoughts. Whatever was I thinking? This wedding service, which I tried not to hear, was a stark reminder of my own, with all its confusion and guilt and uncertainty, and all I had ever wanted was to marry my lovely Dora and be faithful only unto her. For the mutual society, help and comfort . . . There was no mutual comfort in my marriage. Would there ever be? I longed to touch the bare skin of the woman whose neck I could see, and I loathed myself for my weakness. I yearned to make love to a woman. I had tried so hard to make love to my wife. God knows, I could have made myself content with just the odd occasion, but . . . till death us do part . . . I found I was clenching the order of service sheet and had half crumpled it. The old gentleman next to me sent me a curious glance. At least, he turned his head briefly to look at me and I felt awkward. I hoped there was nothing else that showed. I mouthed the words of the hymn but couldn’t sing. No words would come out.
32
DORA
There were tears in my eyes during the service. I’d heard of that sort of thing – you know, women crying at weddings – but it had never occurred to me that I might ever be moved enough to shed tears. And yet there they were, unbidden, making my vision swim. I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it, because I didn’t want Arthur seeing me like that. He might think I was upset that I hadn’t married him or something. I needed to look cool.
Fortunately, by the end of the service I had rallied. I had resisted blinking until my eyes hurt, and the tears had evaporated with the help of a bit of dabbing with a hanky. I turned to follow the old lady out of my pew, my attention straight ahead of me. I couldn’t see him, but I felt somehow his eyes were on me. I walked as demurely as I could out into the bright September sunshine, where I waited on the grass of the tiny graveyard for the rest of the congregation to emerge and for the photos to be taken. In my awkwardness, I pretended to read the gravestones. I stood with my back to the church entrance, intent on a very bland ‘Rest in Peace’ to some woman called Elizabeth or Charlotte who had died in the eighteenth century. How long could it take to read these few words? I passed my hand over the stone, as if fascinated, and moved on to ‘John Miller’, whose relatives had had a little more to say in valediction, but not much.
‘Dora!’
I felt it before I heard it. Fingers placed inside my elbow – a charge sent right through me. I turned. I must have looked as shocked as I felt. ‘Arthur!’
He looked unchanged. Of course he would – it had been only a few months. Look cool. Look cool. I smiled – but not too much. I waited for him to speak. He was staring at me.
‘I didn’t expect you to be here . . . I heard you were abroad.’
This threw me a little. I couldn’t imagine how he could have heard
about France, and it took the wind out of my sails. Now I couldn’t impress him; he had already been impressed. ‘I was in the south of France.’
‘Hence the tan. And the hair . . . I would hardly have recognized you – I didn’t recognize you, actually. I was sitting behind you during the service.’
Oh God! Hearing his voice again, seeing his face, his awkwardness. And his touch! My body was still fizzing from the fingers on the inside of my arm. He might as well have caressed my thighs. Cool, cool, I told myself. ‘Were you? I didn’t see you.’
‘No.’ He hovered. A serviceman stopped to say hello. Photos were being taken, rice was being thrown. ‘Dora, I have to talk to you.’
One of the boys on our boat came over and grabbed my hands in his. ‘Little Dora! How you’ve changed! And Arthur! Never see one of you without the other – you were glued together on the boat! How are you both doing now?’
Arthur babbled some stuff about his work and I said I was training to be a teacher, and then someone interrupted the young man.
‘Come on,’ Arthur said. He took my elbow again. ‘Let’s make our way to the pub. I want to talk to you.’
He didn’t ask me if I wanted to talk to him. I was a bit disappointed that he somehow had the upper hand. There should have been some grovelling. I should have shaken him off. But I wanted his skin on mine, and I let myself be led.
In the Wayfarer’s Inn we were greeted by people who had not attended the service. Arthur went to buy me a drink, and by the time he came back with it I was in conversation with some ex-servicemen from the rescue ship. He hovered by me for a while, then was scooped up himself by someone else. It was okay, though. There was no sign of Pippa, and we had plenty of time. Knowing his eyes were on me, I chatted and giggled and smiled for England. I was a woman of the world, chic and nonchalant. I would speak to him at some point. He would have to wait for me to be free.
33
ARTHUR
When the service ended, the golden-skinned woman turned to go out of the pew, and I saw her profile. I stood and gawped. She followed the elderly woman out and crossed right in front of me, obscured only briefly by the elderly chap in front of me who let her pass before he went into the aisle himself. Would you believe it? It was Dora! It was Dora, and I hadn’t recognized her! And she hadn’t seen me.
Then I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. People kept pouring into the aisle, women and older folk; I couldn’t just barge past them. I saw her disappear out of the church door, silhouetted against the light, but moving away from me. What if she didn’t come back to the reception? What if she’d seen me and ignored me? What if I didn’t catch up with her now? I could hear my own breathing above the sound of the organ music, which, despite the gay occasion, seemed to be pulling me back and holding everyone up in its sluggish tempo.
Then I spotted her. Of course it was her! She seemed slimmer, more graceful and willowy, yet now that I saw her moving between the gravestones, there was something unmistakable about her slight gaucheness. I must have practically shoved people out of the way. I didn’t stop to think about what I was going to say to her; I had nothing planned – I hadn’t expected to see her. All I could think of was reaching her. If I could just get hold of her . . . I could hear people say my name, people who wanted to talk to me, people who would stop me getting to her . . . She was touching a headstone . . . ‘Dora!’ I had grabbed her by the arm. I hadn’t meant to take hold of her like that. I didn’t know what to do next.
‘Arthur!’ She looked surprised to see me, and I couldn’t say she looked pleased. I couldn’t tell what she felt. She was so aloof and inscrutable. Now I had nothing to say. I looked at her, at the tanned face and the clear blue eyes and the stylish hairdo. She had changed, but jealously I wanted her to be the same as she had been with me. And yet . . . and yet she was still . . . I had absolutely nothing to say to her, but I realized my mouth was open, ready to speak. I let a few words out. ‘I didn’t expect you to be here . . . I heard you were abroad.’
I can’t remember what she said next. I really can’t picture anything except her beautiful remembered lips moving, and her lovely remembered eyes that told me she was not so very changed, for all her sophisticated appearance. Some dreadful chap came up and said hello, and I had to dart my eyes away rudely to keep him from lingering, and then some other chap came up and took hold of both her hands in his and I wanted to scream, ‘NO-OOO!’ I wanted to shove him away, I wanted to lift her up in my arms and carry her off, I wanted her all to myself and I was in such a panic that I might end up with none of her, that she would be wrenched away from me by one of these jolly chaps, that I took her by the arm and propelled her away. I said I had to talk to her. It was dreadful. What right did I have? I mean, what right did I have, of all people? But she didn’t put up a fight. She let me take her out of the churchyard and on to the road.
It was a good two hundred yards to the Wayfarer’s, and I can’t for the life of me imagine what my conversation was like on the way. She chatted fairly blandly about the service and how nice it had been, and I probably agreed. When we arrived, I was exasperated to find there were already some people there. People! How I hated people on that day. If only they’d all been somewhere else! By the time I’d bought her a drink, she was already surrounded by servicemen. God, how I loathed them all with their clean haircuts, their clean smiles, their clean uniforms and their dirty thoughts. I suspected every one of them of flirting with her. I was whisked away by Graham, my old friend from the ship, and he really wanted to talk. I kept trying to see Dora, but she disappeared, and then later she reappeared, and I found it hard to keep track of her. He must have noticed, for eventually he said, ‘She scrubbed up nicely, didn’t she? I always thought she was a bit plain, but it just goes to show . . .’
I felt irritated by him then. We both looked over towards Dora, who was beaming and radiant amidst a group of entirely different people. People! I tried to catch her eye, but she didn’t look my way. For a full half-hour I couldn’t catch her attention, and every time I tried to move in her direction, someone stopped me with an urgent ‘Hello!’ or ‘How-the-hell-are-you?’ Then there was a gong, and someone shouted that the buffet was waiting, and I chose that moment to barge through everyone.
‘Excuse me . . . excuse me . . . sorry . . . excuse me . . . Dora!’
I tailed her as she collected a few modest sandwiches on her plate, and I found a little table for two for us to sit at. She didn’t seem unhappy to be sitting with me, but neither did she seem overjoyed. I kept swallowing hard, preparing to say something but then finding no words. I cleared my throat to see if that would help, but repeated clearings produced nothing of any interest, only comments on the sandwich fillings and the pleasantness of the ‘do’.
She told me about France and how she had had an offer to stay but had decided to finish her studies first. Then, it seemed, she might very well return to the south of France to write a book about poverty with a young journalist.
‘Dora!’ I said, barely able to breathe. ‘Dora, I have to talk to you. We can’t keep pretending nothing has happened. The truth is . . . the truth is . . . I made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake.’
She chewed slowly on her sandwich. ‘Yes, you did,’ she replied coolly.
‘And . . . and . . . and I shall regret it for the rest of my life.’
She turned to look at me then, a long, searching look that lifted my spirits. I put my hand on hers and squeezed it. ‘Oh, Dora! I’m so—’
Someone was tapping on a glass with a spoon.
34
DORA
He couldn’t keep his eyes off me. Every time I risked a look in his direction, he was staring at me. I smiled and giggled at nearly everything anyone said, knowing he was watching. I was enjoying myself. Let him wish he could make me laugh too. Let him dream!
I underestimated his keenness. When I’d filled my plate at the buffet he practically dragged me to a table and sat me down with him. I kept
very cool. I could tell he was nervous, but I was as cool as my cucumber sandwich. I told him all about Ralph and how he had asked me to be his research assistant and how he had a house in the south of France. He seemed genuinely rattled by that. Good. I said Ralph had asked me to move in permanently but that I wanted to be an independent woman and finish my training first. Then I would consider it. It must have had an effect because he suddenly took hold of my hand and squeezed it.
‘Dora!’ he said, right in my ear, right up close. I could feel his breath, and it sent a shiver through me, just as it used to. ‘Dora, we have to talk. I made the most terrible mistake.’
‘Yes,’ I said, as nonchalantly as I could, ‘you did.’
He got very worked up then and said, ‘And I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.’
You can imagine how I felt. I knew he was going to tell me something important, and I was so excited. But right at that moment, right at that very moment, someone chimed on a glass with a spoon. It was dreadful timing. No, I mean really dreadful timing.
Everyone stopped talking and looked towards the table where Jack Heggarty, next to his new wife, had stood up ready to make a speech. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I won’t talk for long, because, as many of you know, I’m a pretty boring chap . . .’ People laughed. ‘But one thing I do want to do is to thank you all for coming. I know many of you have travelled long distances for this – and one person even from France! Thank you for that. And of course I want to say how lucky I am to be married today to the most wonderful woman any man could hope to meet.’ Cheers went up all round. ‘And we met, of course, in the worst of circumstances. Difficult times sometimes throw people together, they sometimes bring out the best in people, and I can only say I’m glad – despite all the terrible loss of life and tragedy that touched us all back then – that something good and joyful has come out of it.’ I felt a pressure against my knee from Arthur. His hand, which was palm down on the table next to mine, edged a finger alongside my own. ‘I was going to say that we are the only couple to get together from that boat, but, it seems, someone has got there first . . .’ He looked over at Arthur. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations are in order for another couple from Boat Nine . . .’ My blood galloped through me. What had he heard? What had Arthur told him? Daphne looked over at me and beamed with unreserved delight. She placed her hands together like a child. I could feel myself blushing with the thrill of it. ‘And they’ve beaten us to the altar and are already expecting a child!’