by Annie Groves
‘If you do get sent into action …’ Katie whispered from the shelter of Luke’s arms.
‘You’ll be the first to know, and I won’t be going anywhere without putting my engagement ring on your finger, Katie, if you’ll wear it.’
‘Oh, Luke, of course I will. I’ll be so proud to.’
‘Nowhere near as proud as I’ll be that you’re my girl,’ Luke responded.
SIXTEEN
Easter Sunday
‘There’s someone asking to see you, Charles. He says he was at Dunkirk with you. Apparently he’s read about your engagement in the Liverpool Post, and he’s here to offer his congratulations. I’ve put him in the front room, although I must say that I’m surprised that he’s calling at lunchtime on Easter Day, when he must know that we’ll soon be sitting down to our lunch,’ said Vi. ‘Mind you, he struck me as a bit of an odd sort altogether, and rather down at heel and shabby-looking. I wouldn’t recommend that you go with Charles, Daphne dear. This fellow looks rather a rough sort. Probably one of the lesser desirable sort of enlisted men.’
The whole family, including Bella, had attended the Easter service at the parish church, and of course they had been delayed leaving, with so many people wanting to congratulate Charles and offer the young couple their good wishes. Vi was disappointed that Bella had not made more of an effort to behave in a sisterly way towards Daphne, but then Vi was forced to admit that Bella had disappointed her on several occasions recently, and it was her opinion that her daughter was not the sweet-natured girl she had been. Everyone knew that she had been widowed, but there was really no reason for her to go around being so quarrelsome and difficult. Vi was sure that Daphne’s mother would expect a girl in Bella’s position to put a braver face on things, especially when there was a war on and one had to do one’s bit.
It was not, after all, as though Bella had any reason to behave as she was doing. Another young woman in her position would, Vi thought, have been making sure that her parents and everyone else knew just how much she owed them and how much she had to be grateful to them for.
Vi was beginning to think that Edwin was right when he said that Vi had spoiled Bella too much. Any other girl, Vi told herself, would have been only too glad to step aside to allow her brother and his wife to move into a house that they needed and she did not. Vi had been dreadfully embarrassed by the way Bella had behaved in front of Daphne. What on earth would Daphne’s parents think? Vi dreaded to think what Daphne’s mother might say to her bridge partner about Bella’s ungracious behaviour. She really must do something about learning to play bridge herself, Vi decided. Really, she owed it to Edwin to do so, given his position.
As she went to check on the vegetables, simmering on top of the Rayburn, which, like everything else in the house, Edwin had bought her new when they had moved into the house just before the war, Vi drifted off into a pleasant daydream in which she was graciously accepting Daphne’s mother’s praise for her skill at the bridge table.
Charlie was quite glad of an excuse to escape from his dutiful attendance on his fiancée, and was already mentally trying out a few possible plausible reasons as to why he might need to meet up with his unexpected visitor later on in the day, and thus escape the boredom of being cooped up on his best behaviour with Daphne and his parents, as he pushed open the door to his mother’s precious ‘lounge’ and walked in.
The man who had come to see him was sitting down in what the family knew to be the chair that Edwin had claimed as his own and on which no one else was allowed to sit. Broad-shouldered, with his thinning dark hair slicked back with so much brilliantine that it looked like patent leather, his high flat cheekbones, thick, bull-like neck and a nose that at some stage must have been broken, he had a hard-edged aggressive look that said he wasn’t the kind of man to get on the wrong side of.
He was wearing a good-quality navy-blue suit and a shirt and tie, although the collar of his shirt looked too tight and was digging into his neck. He had a look about him that said he had probably hung around the city’s boxing clubs as a youth. Despite the quality of the suit, his nails were ragged and dirty. He was smoking, and when he inhaled he lifted the cigarette to his lips between his thumb and his forefinger in a cupping movement, rather than between his index and forefinger.
He was reading a copy of Picture Post, a magazine that Charlie’s mother refused to have in the house, and he grinned widely at Charlie over the top of it, telling him cheerfully, ‘Well, well, here he is, the big hero and newly engaged man. Congrats, mate.’
Dougie Richards! Charlie eyed him warily. They had been in the same unit, and right from the start there had been the kind of guarded hostility between them that came from recognising that they shared a similar disposition and a set of values that meant that they put themselves first and others second.
There had been no actual falling-out between them, though, just an unspoken understanding of what they were and the need not to tread on one another’s toes. The very fact that Dougie was now here in his parents’ front room was enough to make Charlie feel very wary indeed, but those feelings didn’t show when he held out his hand to shake the other man’s and exclaimed cheerfully, ‘Dougie, it’s good to see you. How have you been?’
‘Not so good, Charlie. Not like you,’ Dougie Richards answered, shaking Charlie’s hand and then relaxing back into Edwin’s chair, explaining as he did so, ‘Hope you don’t mind if I don’t stand up, only I got me leg buggered on the way back from Dunkirk, so in reward for being damn-near killed by the Germans and then nearly having me leg cut off, the Government’s gone and had me chucked me out of the army as unfit.’
‘Well, never mind, I dare say they’ll have given you a bit of a pension, and then you’ve got those family contacts of yours down on the docks, haven’t you?’ Charlie pointed out unsympathetically.
Dougie had been fond of boasting to the other men about his family and the influence they had. One of his uncles was in charge of one of the dock ‘pens’, as the areas were called where the dockers queued to get work, and two others ran a nice little business organising supplies off the ships for the black marketeers.
‘Yep, bin good to me, my family have. That’s wot families are for, ain’t it, Charlie? I reckon that your dad’s good to you, an’ all, isn’t he, and doesn’t mind putting his hand in his pocket to help you out? Especially now that you’re marrying into money and going to have a posh wife.’
Charlie had had enough, and besides, if he didn’t get rid of Dougie soon he’d probably have his mother coming in, going on about her Sunday roast. Dougie certainly wasn’t someone he wanted to arrange to meet up with to talk about old times.
‘Well, it’s very good of you to come round to offer us your best wishes. But I expect you’ll want to get on your way now, Dougie.’ Charlie’s voice was over-hearty as he turned towards the door.
‘Give me a real surprise, it did, when I read in the Liverpool Post about you getting wed,’ Dougie told him, ignoring Charlie’s hint. ‘Especially when I come to that bit about you being a hero and saving some poor bloke from drowning off Dunkirk.’
‘Well, you know what newspapers are like,’ Charlie told him. He could feel the uncomfortable beginnings of alarm gripping his stomach.
‘And this girl you’re marrying – she’s the sister of this chap you was supposed to have saved, is she?’
‘Look, Dougie, we’re just about to sit down for our Sunday lunch and—’
‘Come off it, Charlie boy, you’d never save no one’s life if you lived to be a hundred. You ain’t the type. Finish ’em off by walking over them to save yourself, is more like it.’ He laughed at his own joke, but then stopped laughing to tell Charlie pointedly, ‘And I ain’t the only one that thinks that neither.’
Charlie turned back towards his visitor, all thoughts of his lunch forgotten. His unease had now turned to a definite sense of queasy alarm.
‘Now see here, Dougie. I don’t know what this is all about, or what yo
u’re trying to imply,’ he began to bluster.
But Dougie quickly stopped him, saying cheerfully, ‘Course you do. You ain’t a fool when it comes to picking up on what’s what, Charlie, we both know that. Got plenty of money, has he, your fiancée’s old man? Sounds like it from the Post. You done pretty well there, mate. And all on account of you lying about saving her brother. I was on that boat with you, don’t forget.’
‘You were down the other end; you couldn’t possibly have seen anything.’
‘You reckon? From what I’ve bin told, you was trying to stop him from hanging on to you in case he drowned and took you with him, rather than saving him.’
‘You can’t prove that,’ Charlie defended himself furiously, his face burning a dark red when he saw the triumphant grin Dougie was giving him.
‘Pretty nifty, him going over the side like he did, eh, Charlie? That way he couldn’t say whether or not you was trying to save him or push him off of you, could he? It says in the Post that he went whilst you had your back to him.’ Dougie shook his head. ‘You see, the thing is, Charlie, you and me, well, we remember things differently, ’cos I definitely remember seeing you giving him an almighty shove. And you know what I reckon? I reckon you give him that shove because you was feared he’d spill the beans about how you’d tried to push him off you, so you thought you’d make sure that he couldn’t.’
Charlie went pale. What Dougie was suggesting was a complete untruth, or at least the bit about him pushing Daphne’s brother off the boat was. It wasn’t his fault, after all, that Eustace had gone and banged his head on the side of the boat when Charlie had been trying to kick himself free of him. That had been a genuine accident, just like when he had gone overboard and drowned once they were on board.
‘I wonder how that posh fiancée of yours and her mum and dad will feel when they know that you killed her brother? Do you reckon she’ll still want to marry you then, Charlie? No one going to think you much of a hero then, are they? More like you’ll be banged up inside for murder.’
Charlie was sweating heavily now. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Come off it, Charlie. I saw you kick him in the head meself, even if you did turn it around smartly and reckon that you was trying to save him when the two of you was pulled onto the boat.’
‘I didn’t kick him,’ Charlie protested frantically, but Dougie wasn’t listening.
Instead he shook his head admiringly and said, ‘That was proper smart of you, Charlie, and quick thinking as well. I admire that in a man, Charlie, a bit of smartness. Now let’s hope you’ll be smart enough to know where your best interests lie, because if I was to speak up about what I saw—’
‘No one will believe you; they’d want to know why you hadn’t spoken up before, if you really had seen something. They’ll know that you’re lying.’
‘Nah they won’t. ’S easy to explain, innit? I had me loyalty to a mate, didn’t I? And then with it being Dunkirk I couldn’t bring meself to talk about it, with seeing what had happened to so many good men. It was only when I read in the papers about you passing yourself off as a hero and deceiving that poor girl that it come to me that I had to say something.’
Charlie was sweating now, an ice-cold sweat that had begun with a sensation of crawling sickness in his belly, and which was now bathing his skin in icy fear.
Folding up his magazine, Dougie put it in his inside pocket and then stood up and put his arm around Charlie’s shoulders, telling him with a smile, ‘Aaw, sick as a parrot, you look, Charlie mate, and no mistake, but don’t worry. You see, the thing is that mates like you and me, we want to do the right thing by one another, don’t we? We aren’t the sort that wants to see a mate done down when we can help them, and I reckon you and me can help one another, Charlie. It’s like this, see? You want your fiancée to go on thinking that you’re a hero, and I want a bit of a helping hand with a hundred nicker. Problem’s easy solved, innit, Charlie? You give me a hundred quid and I forget what I seen on that boat.’
‘That’s blackmail,’ Charlie told him, shrugging Dougie off.
‘Blackmail? Nah,’ Dougie laughed. ‘It’s what you might call a bit of an insurance policy. You ask that posh chap what’s going to be your dad-in-law. I reckon he’ll know all about insurance policies, him being with Lloyd’s. Meet me down at the Ship’s Anchor off the East Dock Road tomorrow teatime, Charlie. Just go round the back door, knock and ask for me. It’s a cousin of mine runs it. It’s close to the landing stage, so you’ll be back on your side of the water quick as you like, before anyone knows you’ve gone. And think on, if you don’t show up your fiancée and her dad will be getting a letter telling them what really happened at Dunkirk.’
‘I didn’t kill him,’ Charlie began furiously, only to stop as the front-room door opened.
Charlie stiffened but it was only Bella.
‘Mummy says to tell you that lunch is ready, Charlie,’ Bella informed him.
‘It’s my fault on account of me keeping him talking about old times,’ Dougie chipped in, leering at Bella, who glowered at them both and then gave Dougie a haughty look of distaste.
‘I’ll see you then, Charlie,’ Dougie warned meaningfully, giving Bella a wink and telling her cheerfully, as he limped out, ‘Pity you ain’t my type, otherwise I reckon you and me could have a fair bit of fun together.’
Dougie might have gone but his going hadn’t brought Charlie any relief, quite the opposite. Charlie might know that he had not killed Eustace but there was still enough truth in the rest of the story to thoroughly discredit him. He could imagine all too easily how Daphne and her family were likely to react to the discovery that, far from rescuing her precious brother, Charlie had actually tried to break free of his clinging hold in his desperation to save his own life and secure a place on the boat.
He really had no option other than to give in and pay Dougie off. But where the hell was he going to get a hundred pounds from at such short notice? Even with notice he’d have the devil’s own job getting it. His father had already loaned him money to buy Daphne’s engagement ring, and wasn’t likely to be willing to lend him any more. Charlie enjoyed playing cards and the men he played with liked putting on good-sized side bets, illegal for serving troops, not that anyone paid any attention to that law. The fact was that Charlie lost more often than he won and was not therefore in the kind of financial position that meant that his bank manager was likely to look favourably on any request for a loan – even if he had time to make such a request.
‘Charles, really, you might have asked your friend to leave a bit sooner.’
Charlie looked blankly at his mother. The overrefined voice she’d taken to using whenever Daphne was around was beginning to grate on his nerves, just like the gentle wistful droop of Daphne’s mouth followed by a sad smile that meant that Daphne wanted him to know that he had hurt her feelings in some way. Charlie looked down at his dinner plate and was seized by a surge of fear-induced nausea.
‘Well, I’m not having that, I’m not. He could see that you were with me but he still smiled at you as bold as brass, and as for you saying he was just being friendly …’
‘Luke, he was.’
‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, seeing the way he was making eyes at you.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it any more.’ Katie’s voice was quiet but tense.
How had it come to this, Katie wondered miserably, knowing that her attempts to placate Luke were only making things worse – and especially after last night, when they had been so happy and when she had felt so loved and so safe. If anyone had tried to tell her then that not much more than twelve hours later Luke would have quarrelled with her so badly and been so unreasonable that she actually wished she was not with him, Katie would have laughed at them. But like yesterday’s blue skies, last night’s happiness was now marred by heavy threatening clouds.
It had all started so innocently. She and Luke had had their breakfast and got on their bikes re
ady to head back to Liverpool. They had stopped at a pretty country pub for some dinner, then had set off again and been cycling for over an hour when they had stopped for a rest just outside a small village. Luke had just disappeared to ‘obey a call of nature’, having already stood guard in a very gentlemanly way so that Katie could do the same, when an RAF dispatch rider had come roaring round the corner on his motorbike, slowing down as he spotted Katie. Luke had re-emerged from the bushes well before the rider had finally stopped to ask if they needed any help.
Katie hadn’t been able to believe it when instead of thanking him for his offer Luke had been curt and offhand with him, positioning himself in front of Katie and staying there until the motorcyclist had ridden off. But there had been worse to come when Luke had started to suggest that the driver had had an ulterior motive in stopping and that Katie had not been averse to his admiration.
If there was one thing that upset Katie more than anything else it was arguments. She had grown up dreading the sound of her parents’ raised voices, and the nasty churning sensation she got in her tummy whenever she heard them. As a little girl she had clapped her hands over her ears to blot out the sound that upset her so much.
When she had grown older, each time her parents rowed, hurling insults, one threatening to leave the other, Katie had been sickeningly sure that they meant it and had never been able to understand how the furious storms could magically disappear and their threats be forgotten when they lingered in her heart, shadowing it with anxiety and pain.
Katie’s feelings were very strong and ran very deep; she was acutely sensitive to the moods of others and dreaded the private misery that rows always brought her. Where her parents, especially her mother, could shrug off the darkest of moods and angriest of shouting matches, it took Katie days to recover fully from the pain of witnessing her parents’ fall-outs. She had grown up with the fear that one day her parents would make good their threats to one another and that one of them would walk out on the other. They always seemed to manage to pull back from the edge of the chasm that led into this darkness, but what if one day they could not? What if one day Katie herself became involved in an argument that would separate her for ever from someone she loved? Surely it was better not to argue at all?