Shipyard Girls in Love

by Nancy Revell

  ‘Eee, but I tell you what,’ Angie said puzzled, ‘Mrs Perkins isn’t a bit like Martha, is she? Neither is her dad, come to think of it.’ Angie was thinking about her own mam. She had inherited the same light reddish blonde hair as well as her mother’s big boobs and wide hips. And her little brothers all looked like mini versions of her dad.

  ‘Mrs Perkins is more like Olive Oyl.’ She chuckled at her comparison. ‘And I reckon her dad’s old enough to be her grandda.’

  ‘I know, Martha’s not like them at all. Not one little bit. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

  ‘About what?’ Angie asked.

  ‘Well, you know,’ Dorothy said, ‘whether Martha is their real daughter?’

  She saw a look of comprehension make its way across her friend’s face.

  ‘Eee, yer might be right there, Dor,’ Angie said. ‘Bloody Nora,’ she said, blowing out air, ‘it’s been a right ol’ day today, hasn’t it?’

  As Dorothy opened the front door, she turned to Angie.

  ‘And it’s not over yet. You still up for going out tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘Too bloody right!’ Angie couldn’t get the words out quickly enough, before they chanted their well-worn mantra in unison: ‘You only live once!’

  Chapter Two

  After Gloria waved Dorothy, Angie, Hannah and Martha off, she shut the front door of the Elliots’ Victorian terrace and stood for a moment in the long, narrow hallway. The mosaic floor tiles seemed more colourful than normal, and the intricate patterns seemed to dance around her feet. She didn’t feel like this was really happening. In fact, she would not have been at all surprised if she had blinked and suddenly found herself back in her bed at home having just woken up from the strangest of dreams.

  Had today really happened? In the space of just a few hours her world had yet again been turned upside down. In fact, it had flipped so many times this past year and a half, she didn’t know which way was up. But, at least this time the outcome was good. More than good. It was a dream come true. She had been given back something she thought had been taken from her for ever.

  She had the love of her life back.

  It had been the last thing on earth she had expected to happen – and today of all days.

  These last few weeks she had been desperate to tell Jack that he had a baby daughter, but how could she when he didn’t even recognise her, let alone know they had been lovers before he had gone to America?

  She had forced herself to accept that Jack was firmly back in Miriam’s clutches, and had decided, for now at least, that she had to let Vinnie believe Hope was his. If he got to know the truth, she was under no illusion as to what would happen.

  ‘You all right, Gloria?’

  Gloria looked up to see Agnes Elliot in the doorway to the kitchen, her little granddaughter, Lucille, clinging to Agnes’s long skirt, a thumb stuck in her mouth and her hand clutching her beloved raggedy toy rabbit.

  Gloria realised she must have looked odd simply standing there, staring at the floor, lost in her own world.

  ‘Why don’t you come in and sit down and have a cuppa,’ Agnes beckoned, her Irish lilt soft and reassuring.

  As she came back into the kitchen – the heart of the Elliots’ home – Gloria saw Arthur sitting quietly in his armchair by the big, black range.

  Tramp, the Border-collie cross that had followed Agnes home one day and not left, and Pup, the runt of the litter that no one wanted, were sniffing the threadbare carpet around the old man’s feet, scavenging for crumbs or any other edible titbits.

  The room was calm now that all of the guests had gone. Gloria looked across at Jack sitting at the large wooden table. Hope was cradled in his arms, and he was looking at her with unadulterated love. By the sound of her daughter’s gentle snuffles, she was sleeping soundly.

  Gloria looked at her lover’s worn face. Jack may have risen through the ranks to eventually become a yard manager, but his impoverished upbringing and the years he’d spent working out in all weathers had left their mark.

  Everyone who had been at the christening and had come back for tea and cake had been sensitive enough not to stay for long. They had all made pleasant conversation, oohed and aahed over baby Hope and made a fuss of Lucille, who had revelled in the attention.

  They had cut up the huge Victoria sponge that Dorothy had got delivered to the house earlier that morning, and all had relived the drama of Hope’s birth at Thompson’s, making great comedy out of Hope’s impromptu arrival in the world.

  Jack had sat and listened, mesmerised by the story of how Gloria had gone into labour at the exact moment the town had been hit by a midday air raid; how they had all been frantic, none of them ever having witnessed a birth before, never mind helped deliver a baby. As the bombs had rained down on the town, they’d managed to create a make-do-and-mend delivery suite in the painters’ shed.

  Dorothy, he heard, had been the unexpected heroine of the moment, the one to roll up her sleeves and bring his little daughter into the world. She had been rewarded with the honour of being appointed Hope’s godmother, a role she had clearly taken very seriously. Jack could see the story had been told many times these past three months as each of the women had their own retelling down to perfection.

  After the cake had been consumed and the tea drunk, the women welders as well as their boss, Rosie, and her friends, Lily, George and Kate, made their excuses and left; all of them more than aware this was the first occasion that Gloria had been able to spend any time with Jack since he’d come out of his coma.

  The party’s host, Agnes, also knew that Jack and Gloria needed time to talk about the consequences of their rekindled love. When the truth came out it was going to be a huge scandal, especially when it became known that their adultery had resulted in an illegitimate baby.

  ‘I’m going to pop next door to see Beryl and I’ll take cheeky Charlie here with me.’ Agnes glanced down at Lucille, who was being surprisingly quiet, perhaps sensing the enormity of what had taken place – and was presently going on – in her home.

  ‘Aye,’ Arthur’s low voice agreed, causing Jack to drag his gaze away from Hope and look at the old man now getting to his feet from his chair near the range, ‘and I’ll get out o’ both yer hairs. I’m sure Albert would appreciate a bit o’ help at the allotment. He’s probably out there now, happy as owt that we’ve just had that huge downpour, though I’m sure his broad beans will have taken a bit of a hammering in that storm.’

  Gloria looked at Arthur and thought that they weren’t the only things that had taken a battering in the storm this morning. The old man had turned up at the church with Jack, drenched to the skin and looking like he was on his last legs.

  ‘Arthur,’ Gloria asked, ‘would you mind staying with us for a little while before you go? It would be good to have a chat.’

  What had happened this morning had been wondrous, something Gloria never thought could happen in a million years, but for now she needed to concentrate on what they should do next.

  Arthur eased himself back into his chair, inwardly thankful as he didn’t think he had the strength to make it out the door, never mind trek across to the Town Moor; he’d thought he was going to take his last breath under God’s roof right there at St Ignatius.

  ‘Aye, course I will.’ Arthur spoke in such a way that Gloria knew he understood why she wanted him to stay.

  Agnes stepped towards Jack and baby Hope. ‘It’s been lovely meeting you, Jack.’

  ‘Aye, and you too,’ Jack said, reaching out and shaking Agnes’s hand. ‘And thank you. For everything.’

  Jack had realised on returning to the Elliots’ house after the christening that Agnes had already played an important part in his little girl’s life. He had learnt that not only had she and her daughter-in-law, Bel, been looking after Hope during the day while Gloria went to work, but they loved this little mite, now asleep in his arms, as though she was one of their own.

  ‘Ah, it’s my pleasure.’
Agnes touched Hope gently on the cheek. Then she looked at Gloria, whom she had come to know well these past few months, and gave her a smile that somehow conveyed the empathy she felt.

  After Agnes left, having given in to Lucille’s demands that she be allowed to keep her new yellow pinafore dress on, Gloria moved her chair nearer to Jack. As she did so, Jack looked at her and took her hand.

  His head felt like it was going to explode with everything he had learnt today, and with all that had happened. As soon as Arthur had explained to him that he had been spending time with Gloria before he’d gone to America, and that his marriage to Miriam was far from what his wife had led him to believe, Jack knew he had to talk to Gloria himself. He’d raced to the church, driven by the knowledge that something momentous was about to happen. And it had. As he’d walked down the aisle, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Hope. It made no logical sense, but he had known straight away that the child was his.

  ‘I’m so sorry I can’t remember anything from before I nearly drowned. God, I’d give anything to have my memory back.’

  Gloria squeezed Jack’s hand and kept hold of it.

  ‘You know, I think you will remember in time. The doctor I spoke to said there was a good chance your memory would come back.’ Gloria forced herself to sound more optimistic than she felt.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Jack said. ‘You came to the hospital, didn’t you? Not long after I’d come out of the coma?’

  Gloria would never forget that afternoon in September when she had rushed to the hospital in such excitement after Rosie told her Jack had come out of his coma, thinking that at last she and Jack would be reunited and live happily ever after with their baby daughter. She should have known it was all too good to be true. Her joy that Jack was back in the land of the living had been snatched away almost as soon as it had been gifted to her when she had seen the look on Jack’s face and he had smiled at her with blank eyes. The nice young doctor had then taken her to his consultation room and explained that Jack had amnesia.

  Gloria looked at Jack and realised she had a lifetime of memories to give him, but now wasn’t the time. Too much had already taken place today. If she felt as though her head was spinning, Jack’s must have felt like it was in the middle of a tornado.

  Besides, the present was more pressing. Arthur had told Gloria on the way back from the church that Jack had taken the morning off work but was expected back after lunch. They had managed to buy more time as Polly had gone to Crown’s to tell them that Jack had got held up and wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day. But there would be questions asked if he wasn’t home after the end of the day shift.

  ‘Jack,’ Gloria began, ‘there is so much to talk to you about, but we can’t do it all in one go. I’m not even sure how much you know.’ Gloria looked at Arthur with a questioning face, ‘How much Arthur has told you already?’

  Arthur sat up and perched himself on the edge of the armchair so that he was looking at Gloria and Jack.

  ‘Well, we didn’t have that much time to chat before the service. We went for a walk along the river yesterday and I told Jack a bit about his younger days, when I was working at the yard for the Wear Commissioner.’

  ‘I did get a memory back,’ Jack interrupted. ‘A man dressed in all his diving gear – you know, massive twelve-bolt helmet, big canvas suit with tubes coming out of it, and great big steel boots.’

  Gloria was listening intently, a faint shard of hope breaking through that Jack might actually manage to retrieve at least some of his memory.

  ‘But I couldn’t remember anything about my mam and dad or anything about growing up,’ Jack said.

  ‘I didn’t pull any punches,’ Arthur admitted. ‘I told Jack that his ma and da, like many back then, were very poor, and their situation wasn’t helped by the fact Jack’s da wasn’t far off a total waste of space and when he wasn’t doing piecework, he was drinking every penny he earned. I told him he started at Thompson’s as an apprentice plater as soon as he left school, and that if he wasn’t at the yard, he’d be with me – and Flo and our Tommy, of course – at the Diver’s House.’

  Arthur thought for a moment. ‘And I told him that you two met when you were really just bairns, and that he courted you for, well, I reckon a good couple of years?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Gloria said, flashing a look at Jack, ‘two and a half to be precise.’ An image of Jack as a young lad with an unruly mop of thick, dark hair and dancing grey-blue eyes suddenly struck her.

  ‘But,’ Arthur continued, ‘you two split up and Jack married Miriam not long afterwards.’

  ‘It sounded to me like there was a reason for our getting married so quickly …’ Jack looked at Gloria for an answer.

  ‘That’s what you told me, not long before you went off to America.’ Gloria paused. ‘That you married Miriam because she told you she was in the family way, and that later she admitted to you she had lied, but by then she’d got pregnant for real.’

  When Jack had told Gloria the truth about why he had ended their courtship all those years ago – how he had gone out on a few dates with Miriam when he and Gloria had fallen out over her ride on the back of her workmate’s motorbike, and how a while later Miriam had come to him and told him she was expecting – it was clear he still felt terribly ashamed.

  He had told Gloria there hadn’t been a day since when he hadn’t regretted that one night with Miriam: ‘That one massive mistake I feel like I’ve been paying for ever since. But worst of all, I feel like you have paid for it too.’ She would never forget those words, nor the look of despair in Jack’s eyes when he had spoken them. But they had brought Gloria a sense of relief. An understanding. She had always known there was more to it. Finally she knew why.

  ‘God!’ Jack’s frustration suddenly came to the fore, causing Hope to wake up. ‘I just wish I could remember. Miriam told me that we were love’s young dream.’

  Gloria got up and took Hope from Jack, knowing that her whimper would turn into a wail if she didn’t soothe her.

  Jack stood up and walked over to the kitchen window, which looked out onto the backyard.

  ‘The strangest thing is’ – he spoke to Gloria and Arthur but kept looking out of the sash window patterned with criss-crosses of brown tape – ‘I recognised Hope even though I’d never seen her before. Hadn’t even known of her existence.’

  He turned round to see Arthur watching him from his armchair and Gloria standing with their baby girl in her arms by the stove.

  Jack looked at them both.

  ‘This may sound completely mad, but I saw Hope when I was drowning, and I’ve seen her in my dreams these past few weeks.’

  Gloria felt a shiver go down her back.

  ‘I can’t remember my own past and yet I’ve been able to remember a daughter I never knew existed!’ Jack let out a big sigh. ‘You’d be within your rights to have me carted off to the local nuthouse.’ He tried to laugh.

  ‘Jack,’ Gloria said, sitting back down on her chair by the kitchen table, ‘you’re perfectly sane. Your mind’s just all in a muddle. It just needs un-muddling, and that’s going to take time.’ She was quiet for a moment before adding: ‘It pains me to say this, Jack, but I think, for the time being, we should keep things the way they are, and you should stay with Miriam – just until we’ve had time to think about the best way forward. There’s a lot to be considered.’

  Gloria knew that Miriam would not take the news lying down. Nor would she go off and lick her wounds quietly. No way. Miriam would be beyond angry. She would be out for revenge and she had the power and the money to get it in full.

  She felt herself shudder at the thought. They needed to be prepared for whatever Miriam decided to do when she found out. And with Jack the way he was, with a mind devoid of all memories of their love and the time they had spent together, an appropriate strategy was all the more vital.

  Arthur nodded his agreement as he leant down to stroke the puppy.

  �
�Aye, I think Gloria’s right. Miriam’s not going to react kindly to being told that you two were seeing each other before you went to America … And that you’ve had a child together.’

  ‘And,’ Gloria said with a tight smile, ‘there is your other daughter to think of.’

  Jack nodded. While holding Hope he had been hit by another vague memory. As he had stared at her perfect skin, rosy cheeks and rosebud mouth, he’d had a flash of holding another baby in his arms. A baby with a mop of thick, black hair, not unlike Hope’s.

  ‘Aye, Helen,’ Jack said. ‘This is going to be hard on her and she’s going to need to know she’s got a little sister.’

  Gloria felt her stomach turn over at the prospect. Not only would they have to deal with the wrath of Miriam, but also with Helen – a pale imitation of her mother in her manipulative ways and her need to always get what she wanted, but still a hard, calculating and vindictive young woman. She had shown her true colours when Polly and Tommy had fallen for each other last year, and she’d done everything in her power to split them up because she wanted Tommy for herself. And when she hadn’t succeeded, she had taken her anger and resentment out on them all and tried to break up their squad of all-women welders. Thankfully, she had failed, but it had been a hard-won battle.

  Thinking about her reaction to finding out that not only was Jack going to leave her mother for one of those women welders, but had fathered a baby – well, it just didn’t bear thinking about.

  Jack sat back down heavily in his chair. ‘I don’t know … There’s a part of me just wants to go back today and tell Miriam everything. Get everything out in the open.’

  On hearing his words, a burst of panic shot through Gloria. This was so like Jack. So impulsive. Gloria took hold of his hand.

  ‘Not yet, Jack. We need time.’ Her face was serious. ‘I promise we’ll be open about everything soon. But not just yet. Not today.’

  Jack nodded, and squeezed Gloria’s hand. He had the sudden urge to hold her and kiss her. It was the complete opposite of the way he felt about Miriam, his wife.