Secrets

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘No, they are celebrating the birth of the new baby,’ he said indignantly.

  Adele smiled. ‘Maybe they say that’s what they are doing,’ she said. ‘But from what I’ve seen, most working-class people drink to escape reality. They don’t want to think about having an extra mouth to feed, just as they don’t want to remember there’s rent to pay, and that they’ll be lucky if they’re still in work next week.’

  ‘It seems we are looking at this from opposite ends,’ he said with a smile. ‘Do you know any couple who married for love and stayed that way?’

  ‘My grandmother did,’ Adele retorted. ‘Grandfather died a couple of years after the war. Every now and then she tells me something about him and her face goes all soft. She’s got some of the pictures he painted in the cottage, she’s always looking into them like she’s seeing him.’

  ‘He was an artist then?’ Michael looked quite taken aback.

  ‘Yes, and a good one too, but he was wounded in the war and never painted again. When they first married they lived in Tunbridge Wells, they had a quite different life there I think. More like yours, I suppose.’

  Michael looked really interested at that. ‘So they weren’t real “Marsh People”?’ he asked with a smile. ‘Your grandfather came here to paint? That’s pretty romantic.’

  Adele had thought it terribly romantic when her grandmother had explained how it all came about. She loved to hear how they’d brought all their grand furniture down from Tunbridge Wells in a horse-drawn cart. She imagined the bear coat stand, the stuffed bird and the china cabinet all piled up, with Granny and Grandfather sitting on the back with Rose between them.

  ‘Granny’s not exactly one for going over the past, and why and how things came about.’ Adele shrugged. ‘But there are things about her that give you big clues. She’s very well educated, her father was a schoolmaster, and some of her furniture is really fine, like it came from a big house. And Grandfather was an officer in the army, not an enlisted man.’

  ‘Intriguing,’ Michael said thoughtfully. ‘You are too, Adele. You’ve got a young girl’s face, but the mind and manner of someone far older. Why do you think that is?’

  ‘The wind on the marshes I expect,’ she joked, afraid he was nudging her into a situation where she might say too much. ‘Come on,’ she said getting up. ‘We’ll never get to Rye Harbour at this rate.’

  It was just on six when Adele got home, having parted from Michael where he’d left his bike earlier in the day. She was very cold now, and she went straight over to the stove to warm her hands. Her grandmother was sitting mending a pair of socks. She’d put some bread to rise by the stove, and there was also one of her vegetable soups simmering.

  ‘Umm,’ Adele said, sniffing the air. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Didn’t the young man buy you tea and cake?’ Grandmother said in a caustic manner.

  Adele wheeled round in surprise. ‘How did you know I was with a young man?’

  ‘I have eyes,’ she retorted. ‘The marsh is flat, you can see for miles. If you were trying to hide him then you failed.’

  Such a remark was typical of her grandmother. She said things just as they were, no beating around the bush, no trick questions or subterfuge.

  ‘Of course I wasn’t trying to hide him. He just got talking to me and I showed him the way to the harbour.’ Adele felt foolish now – she might have known her grandmother would spot them together.

  ‘And his name?’

  ‘Michael Bailey,’ Adele said. ‘He’s down here because his grandmother, Mrs Whitehouse, died. You mentioned her the other day.’

  Granny nodded. ‘Then he must be Emily’s child. The Whitehouses had two sons too, but they lost them both in the war.’

  ‘Do you know his mother then?’ Adele asked.

  Her grandmother wrinkled her nose. ‘Yes I do, an uppity little madam, though she may of course have grown out of that. I haven’t seen her for donkey’s years.’

  Adele would have liked to have known why her grandmother had formed that opinion, but she thought it might lead to repeating what Michael had told her. ‘Michael’s really nice,’ she said instead. ‘He really liked the marsh too, I don’t think he’s ever seen a newborn lamb close up before.’

  ‘That’s city folk for you,’ her grandmother said with a wry smile. ‘As I recall, the man Emily married was a bumptious chap. Far too full of himself for my liking. I’m glad the son isn’t like that too.’

  Adele was surprised that her grandmother didn’t ask her more about Michael. Girls she knew at school said that their parents were always suspicious of anyone of the opposite sex. But then, as Granny knew his family perhaps she didn’t need to ask anything more.

  When Adele asked if she could go for a bike ride on Monday, she was even more surprised that her grandmother agreed readily. The only comment she made was not to go too far, as the weather in April was unpredictable.

  Granny was right. Adele and Michael got as far as Camber Sands and it began to pour with rain. They sheltered under a tree for a while, but when the rain showed no sign of stopping, they had to head for home.

  Yet even getting soaked didn’t spoil the day. Michael was such good company, he could talk about anything and everything. He told her about his friends at school, his home in Hampshire, and how he wanted to fly aeroplanes.

  ‘Father sniffs every time I say it,’ he laughed. ‘He’s a barrister, you see, so he thinks I ought to be one too. I told him once that he’d already sucked Ralph into the law, and he needn’t think I was going to follow like a sheep. But I think he imagines when I go up to Oxford that will change my mind.’

  Adele had already decided she wouldn’t like Mr Bailey one bit. Michael had said he was complaining at being stuck in Winchelsea with a doddery old man, and if he had his way he’d be off the moment his mother-in-law’s funeral was over. Adele thought it was hardly surprising Mrs Bailey was nervy if she had such a heartless husband.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t think you’ll make a living flying planes,’ she said.

  ‘Well, he’s probably right there.’ Michael grinned. ‘But I don’t care about money. The first time I got up close to a little bi-plane, something about it just bowled me over. It belonged to a friend of my father’s and he took me up in it. That was it, my fate sealed.’

  ‘I think it’s wonderful you’ve got a real ambition,’ Adele said staunchly. ‘But he might be right about you changing your mind once you’re at Oxford.’

  She knew now that Michael was nearly sixteen, and he had two more years of school before Oxford. She had thought he must be very clever to go there, but Michael insisted he was only average, and he didn’t think he’d stand a chance of getting into Oxford if it was purely on merit, rather than having been at the right school first.

  ‘I won’t change my mind,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ve only agreed to make an effort to get into Oxford because they have a flying corps there. I’m going to do it, come what may.’

  Mrs Whitehouse’s funeral was two days later, and the rest of Michael’s family didn’t arrive until the morning of that day. Adele was intending to walk up to Winchelsea and just happen to be near the church at the time of the funeral. She wanted to get a look at them all, but her grandmother was horrified when she realized that was what Adele had in mind.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she said sharply. ‘Have a little respect, girl! Do you think they’d appreciate you gawping at them at such a time?’

  ‘I was only curious about them,’ Adele said lamely. ‘Michael’s told me a lot about them.’

  ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ her grandmother said tartly. ‘I daresay the boy will be back to see you when it’s all over. And you’d better invite him in so I can get a good look at him.’

  Adele thought that sounded ominous, but she hadn’t reckoned on Michael having such a winning way with people. He didn’t turn up till two days after the funeral, and in his arms he had a bundle of wood for the stove that he’d picked u
p by the river on the way down from Winchelsea.

  ‘I hope you don’t think me impertinent, Mrs Harris,’ he said, when Honour opened the door to him. ‘But I saw all this lying around and thought you might be glad of it.’

  ‘What a kind thought,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t know that your parents would approve of you roaming down here. But come on in, it’s a miserable raw day.’

  Adele felt shy and awkward about Michael being in her home. Out on the marshes they were equals, but she expected he would think Granny’s house with its lack of electricity and outside lavatory a slum compared with his grandparents’ big house.

  But Honour asked him about the funeral, and how his grandfather was bearing up, even mentioning that she knew him to be a good chess player, and Michael looked very comfortable and at ease with her as he had a cup of tea.

  Honour was intending to make and bottle up her ginger beer that day. The mixture of yeast, ginger and sugar had been fermenting by the stove in a big pot for the past week. ‘May I help?’ Michael asked, when she mentioned it.

  The bottles Honour was intending to use were still outside, unwashed. Never one to let a pair of willing hands go unused, she set Michael to the task in the scullery. She gave him a bottle brush, hot soapy water, and made him scour them out and remove any labels.

  Adele was frightened he’d get fed up and want to leave, but he didn’t. He cleaned the bottles in no time, bringing them into the living room all sparkly, just as Adele and her grandmother had finished straining the yeast mixture, added lemon and water, and were ready to fill the bottles.

  ‘So when is it ready to drink?’ he asked, as he took over lifting the heavy bucket of cloudy ginger beer to pour it into the funnel Honour was holding in a bottle.

  ‘It needs to sit for at least a couple of weeks,’ she replied. ‘It’s delicious. Adele will give you some that’s ready to drink now. It’s not alcoholic like my wine, and they say ginger is good for the circulation. I’m proof of that. I rarely have cold feet or hands.’

  ‘Then I’d better start drinking it,’ Michael said with a wink at Adele. ‘One of the drawbacks to being a pilot is cold hands and feet.’

  Adele was astounded to see how quickly he won her grandmother round. She not only said he was welcome to call any time if he was at a loose end, but thanked him heartily for his help and the wood.

  He came every day after that, and never failed to ask what he could do for Honour before he suggested going for a walk or a bike ride. He shinned up on to the roof to fix a loose tile, he collected wood, helped weed the vegetable plot, and secured a climbing rose right round the trellis porch at the front door. He blanched when Honour killed some rabbits one day, yet he still stayed to help her skin them.

  Yet it wasn’t so much what he did or what he said that made Honour like him. It was just the way he was. He didn’t have a condescending bone in his body – he was genuinely interested in the way she made a living, and openly admired her ingenuity and resourcefulness. Honour said she liked his intelligent questions, muscle and lack of squeamishness.

  ‘He’s a fine boy,’ she said late one night as she and Adele were having their nightly cocoa. ‘I never would have believed Emily Whitehouse could produce anything but a brood of gutless snobs.’

  ‘I think from what Michael’s told me that his mother is a bit nervy,’ Adele confided, hoping that wasn’t betraying his confidence.

  ‘So was her mother,’ her grandmother said with a wicked smile. ‘I said to her once, “Stick up for yourself, woman, don’t let Cecil use you as a doormat.” She sort of whimpered and said words to the effect that a husband should be masterful.’

  Adele was astonished. ‘I didn’t know you knew her that well!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘We were friends.’ Honour pursed her mouth the way she always did when there was something she didn’t want to enlarge on. ‘She was a lot older than me of course, but we were friends nevertheless. That kind of changed when I began cleaning for her at the start of the war, though. I had to, I needed the money. I helped out a few times too when young Emily came running home with her children because that husband of hers wasn’t treating her right.’

  ‘Why haven’t you told Michael all that?’ Adele asked.

  Her grandmother didn’t answer for a little while. But eventually she looked at Adele and gave a ghost of a smile. ‘I don’t like admitting I had to clean for anyone, especially a friend,’ she said. ‘But more than that, I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell him I had any connection with his grandparents, or his mother.’

  ‘Why? He’d be fascinated!’

  ‘Yes, he would be, he’s that kind of a lad. And he’s also the open kind who would go home all excited and tell his parents. I don’t want that. As I remember, both of them were fearful snobs. I suspect they’d frown on Michael being friends with you.’

  Adele had already come to that conclusion on her own. She knew people who lived out on the marshes didn’t mix with people in the big houses in Winchelsea.

  ‘You don’t frown on it though, do you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ her grandmother said vehemently. ‘My background is every bit as good as theirs, and I’m pleased you’ve got such a nice friend. But, my dear, you must remember he will be going back to Hampshire and I can’t imagine his parents coming down very often to see poor old Cecil. You may not ever see him again.’

  Later that night as Adele lay in bed listening to the wind howling across the marsh, she thought about what her grandmother had said and felt sad because she knew it was true. Michael was such fun to be with, they laughed at all the same things, they could talk about anything, and she wished he could stay here for ever.

  But she knew she had to be realistic. He probably wouldn’t have made friends with her if there’d been anyone else around to pal up with. Once he was back at school he’d soon forget about her. She was going to miss him, but she wasn’t going to get silly about him like the soppy girls in love stories.

  For the last week Michael was there, the weather turned really warm, and they had many wonderful times together. They paddled in the sea, shrieking with laughter because it was so cold. They built a bridge out of branches across one of the streams on the way to Rye Harbour, and had a competition to see who could make their gob-stopper last longest. Adele had never had one of those giant sweets before as she rarely had any money to spend on such things, but Michael had bought them, and explained they changed colour as you sucked them. It made Adele laugh when he kept making her open her mouth to see what colour hers had turned to.

  They tried having races across the top of the shingle banks. Adele taught him to kind of ski down the steep parts. She showed him the millions of baby eels in one of the streams and he taught her to count in French. Yet it wasn’t so much what they did, it was that everything seemed to be such fun when they were together. They could just look at each other and start laughing over nothing.

  On the morning of the day Michael had to go home again, he called round at Curlew Cottage just as they were finishing breakfast.

  ‘I won’t intrude, Mrs Harris,’ he said very politely. ‘But this is a thank-you for being so welcoming.’ He handed Honour a very pretty tin tea caddy, full of tea.

  ‘How very thoughtful of you, Michael,’ she beamed, admiring the tin.

  ‘I got you a book,’ he said to Adele, handing over a parcel. ‘I hope you haven’t already read it.’

  Adele opened it and found it was Lorna Doone. ‘No, I haven’t read it,’ she said, delighted with the surprise. ‘Thank you, Michael. I shall start reading it today.’

  ‘Will you stay and have a cup of tea with us?’ Granny asked.

  Michael shook his head. ‘I can’t, they’ll be waiting to leave.’

  ‘Run along to the end of the lane with him then,’ she said, giving Adele a little nudge. ‘Goodbye, Michael. I hope to see you again one day.’

  Michael had his bike out in the lane. He picked it up and looked at Adele.r />
  ‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said glumly. ‘Will you write back if I write to you?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Adele agreed. ‘You make sure you tell me all your news. But you’d better be going. You don’t want to make your parents angry.’

  She watched as he rode off, the bicycle wheels wobbling as he went over the rough ground. Towards the end of the lane he stood up on the pedals and went faster. As he turned on to the Winchelsea road he waved without turning his head.

  Adele still had the book he’d given her in her hands. She opened it and saw he’d written a message for her.

  To Adele, a story about a boy who meets a girl out on the moors and can’t forget her. I’ll never forget you either.

  With all my best wishes,

  Michael Bailey. Easter 1933

  Chapter Ten

  1935

  ‘I don’t believe I’m ever going to find a real job,’ Adele said wearily as she slumped down on the grass by her grandmother’s chair.

  It was almost the end of August, two years since she left school, yet she still hadn’t found permanent work. She had managed to get temporary jobs, a few weeks here and there in the laundry when they had a busy spell with holidaymakers in the town, haymaking in a farm in Peasmarsh beyond Rye. She had picked strawberries and raspberries, dug up potatoes, cleaned the fish shop in town after it was closed for the day, and done dozens of other little jobs too. She had written letters to just about every company and business in Hastings as well, and travelled over there on the bus time and time again, but no one wanted to take her on permanently, in any capacity.

  ‘They all say they want someone with experience,’ Adele complained. ‘But how can I get experience if no one will give me a chance to show what I can do?’

  ‘Times are hard,’ her grandmother said, and gave her a little pat on the head.

  Adele was only too aware that there were millions unemployed, and indeed that men had taken their own lives because they couldn’t provide for their families. Hardly a week went past without a hungry man looking for work knocking on the door to ask if they could spare some food. Honour always gave them a bowl of soup and some bread – she’d even parted with the last of Frank’s old clothes. These men usually came from the Midlands or the North of England, though there was terrible poverty in Rye and Hastings too.