by Maureen Lee
Kitty cried openly over the letter. ‘Happy! I couldn’t possibly be less happy. And I’m not sweet, either, not any more. From now on, I’m going to be as hard as nails. Never again will I let a man do to me what Dale did.’
‘They’re not all like that, love,’ Jessica tried to convince her.
‘Aren’t they?’ Kitty cried scornfully. ‘Huh! I won’t wait to find out. As soon as one seems serious, I’ll ditch him.’
She never gave anyone the opportunity to get serious. She had a good time at the dances, teasing her partners to distraction and letting them buy drinks all night if there was a bar, but she always left alone. After her experience with Stan Taylor, she decided to keep her body to herself from now on. Even the thought of being kissed was intolerable.
Glyn Thomas also wrote. Kitty had almost forgotten him. He was due in Liverpool shortly and would be staying with Jack Doyle. The very second he had parked his kitbag, he would be around to see her.
Jack must have told Glyn that she’d moved, because he turned up at Jessica’s just as she was about to leave for a dance at the Rialto. He was in his sailor’s outfit and his face wore the old irrepressible grin when Kitty opened the door. His arms were stretched out dramatically all ready to give her a monstrous hug, but his expression turned to one of dismay.
‘You’ve changed, Kitty,’ he said immediately. ‘You never used to wear all that stuff on your face.’
‘We all change,’ she replied pertly and invited him in. Jessica was upstairs putting Penny to bed.
‘How are you?’ Glyn asked courteously when they were sitting down.
‘Couldn’t be better,’ sang Kitty.
‘You’ve changed a lot.’
‘You’ve already said that.’
‘It’s not just your face, it’s your manner.’
Kitty sensed he felt disillusioned. He’d carried a picture around in his mind of a fresh, innocent girl who no longer existed. What was it he’d said when they first met? Something about the face being the mirror to the soul and she was beautiful inside and out. She didn’t care if he was disappointed. He was a man, and one of these days, like Dale, he would have let her down. She decided to refuse when he asked her out.
But she didn’t have the opportunity to turn him down. After a few minutes of stiff conversation, Glyn decided it was time to leave, and made no mention of seeing her again.
‘That’s a laugh,’ Kitty said to Jessica after Glyn had gone. ‘He wanted us to get married a few months ago. Now he can’t bear to lay eyes on me just because I’m wearing a bit of make-up. He said I’ve changed. If he loved me all that much, he would have wanted to know why.’
‘He can’t have been genuine,’ Jessica said despairingly. Sometimes, sorting out Kitty’s tragic love life could be a touch wearing.
‘What man is?’ snorted Kitty.
Rita Mott had taken lodgings in Peterborough and was working in a local factory. I’ve been in touch with Den, she wrote to Jessica. He’s in a military prison in Colchester, and he’s willing to have me back. I do as much overtime as they’ll let me. I never go out, and I put every penny aside so Den can start another garage once this bloody war’s over. I miss the ‘you know what’ we used to talk about something rotten, but never again! From now on, it’s just me and Den. Love to Penny. I really miss her – fact, I really miss you both. Your loving friend, Rita.
‘At least someone’s sorted out satisfactorily,’ thought Jessica in relief. That night, she wrote back to Rita and told her how pleased she was to hear she’d made it up with Den. I’ve some news of my own. Remember Major Henningsen who called at the garage the day I heard Arthur had been killed? We’re going to be married, I’m not sure when …
Jessica laid down her pen. When?
Gus was pressing to get married straight away, bemused at her hesitation – understandably, since it was Jessica who’d proposed.
‘But I said in the long-distant future,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I wanted to get to know him first. I don’t love him!’
Although she wanted to be honest, she couldn’t very well tell him that! She’d thought they’d make a fine partnership, that they’d be good for each other, but Gus had assumed from her words that night in the Dorchester that she loved him as much as he loved her.
‘I never loved Arthur, not properly, not even when we were first married, and I was only a child when I loved Jack. It was no more than a schoolgirl crush. Perhaps I’m too selfish to love anyone except Penny – and this new one.’
She laid her hands protectively on her stomach. The doctor had confirmed she was definitely pregnant. After she’d sorted out her dates, he worked out the baby was due early next year: mid February.
Gus had offered to rent a house near the base: Warrington or Manchester. ‘The sooner we get married, the better for the baby, though frankly, Jess, I must be out of my mind getting tangled up with a gal like you.’
‘That’s what makes us so suitable for each other,’ said Jessica wisely. ‘We don’t have the same morals as other people.’ This statement was in contrast to their so far decorous relationship. Gus had done no more than kiss her, which was also understandable in view of his desire that they be married soon.
He laughed. ‘Don’t we? That’s news to me. I’ve been strictly moral all my life. You’ve bewitched me, Jess Fleming, right from the start. That’s why I was so rude, I was trying to resist you. Now you’re trying to tell me I’m some special sort of person just so you can get your talons even further into me. Now, about this wedding …’
‘What about Peter?’ asked Jessica.
‘What about him?’
‘What will he have to say about his dad getting married again?’ Gus was obviously very proud of his boy and mentioned him a lot.
‘Peter’s an easy-going kid.’ He shrugged his shoulders carelessly. ‘He never knew his mother. He told me if I ever found him a new mom, she had to have long red hair and be called Jessica.’
‘Seriously, Gus. He mightn’t like me.’
‘Pete likes everyone, but perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep your lurid past a secret between you and me. He might think I’ve taken up with a scarlet woman.’ He grinned amiably. ‘Now, for the second time, about this wedding …’
She wouldn’t feel isolated, he assured her, as she’d done in the Lake District. Something was always going on at the base, and a few wives of senior officers were already there.
Jessica picked up the pen to continue with her letter to Rita, but paused, the pen poised over the paper. ‘I’m not sure if I want to be in love after seeing what it’s done to Kitty. And fancy being sick with worry all the time the way Sheila is over Calum! I never gave Arthur a second thought when he joined the army.’
She finished the letter to Rita and turned on the wireless. The ten o’clock bulletin reported good news from North Africa. After their triumphant capture of Tobruk, the Germans had advanced as far as Alamein, but their advance had drawn to a sudden and surprising halt. According to the announcer, Rommel and his army still remained bogged down in this position several weeks later. A new Commander of the Eighth Army had just been appointed, Major-General Bernard Montgomery. In another part of the world, the Germans had arrived at the gates of Stalingrad, but the Russian people had declared, ‘We shall never surrender.’
‘Good for them!’ whispered Jessica. She supposed she had better stay up till Kitty arrived home. The poor girl was still in a state and Jessica could do little to comfort her. She felt slightly ashamed of how much she was looking forward to Kitty’s absence when she went on a week’s holiday with her father at the end of the month.
Jimmy Quigley decided it had been a funny old year. He needed a break and managed to convince his daughter that she needed one even more than he did. The Government were urging people to spend their holidays at home and not use up precious space on the trains. Events had been arranged in local parks: band concerts, open-air plays and all kinds of entertainments. ‘But even i
f we went somewhere different every day,’ Jimmy said, ‘it still means coming back to Bootle. I’d like to be somewhere different for a while. What about a bed and breakfast place in Southport? It’s only a local train ride. What do you think, kiddo?’
‘That sounds nice, Dad,’ Kitty said dutifully. It couldn’t have been more different from the holiday she’d planned with Dale in Ipswich and she didn’t look forward to it a bit, though she supposed it would be better than moping round Jessica’s. She could have gone to Brighton with two of the nurses, but that would have only ended up a continuation of the frenetic life she was already leading, which was beginning to wear her down.
‘We’ll take the lads,’ Jimmy said firmly. ‘There’s no way I’d leave them with their mam, and she’ll not come, that’s for sure. Anyroad, it’s me bloody wife I need the break from!’
There was plenty of money in his pocket nowadays. One good thing about Theresa, she was careful with the housekeeping and required surprisingly little each week. Jimmy always had an argument ready if she asked for more, but she never did. As expected, she declared holidays a waste of time and money and said she would clean the house from top to bottom whilst they were away – much to Jimmy’s relief, and, he suspected, the lads’.
He found a place which called itself a ‘guest house’ advertised under ‘Holidays’ in the Liverpool Echo, and wrote and booked. It turned out to be a rather cramped establishment above a cheap restaurant off Lord Street. Kitty’s top-floor room was very small, with a single bed tucked underneath the sloping ceiling. The window caught the early morning sun and she could feel it warm on her face when she first woke up. Georgie, Billy and her dad were in a much larger room below.
Their landlady made liberal use of the new dried egg mixture which was being imported from America. Every morning for breakfast, there was dried egg scrambled on toast, dried egg fritters or dried egg fried flat with bacon or mushrooms.
After a few days, Kitty was glad she’d come. The weather continued to be glorious, and it was relaxing to start off the day with nothing whatsoever to do. Some mornings, she merely stayed in the lounge and read one of the books which were thoughtfully provided on a shelf in the corner, or else she wandered round the shops in Lord Street or strolled along the vast silver sands whilst Jimmy took the lads fishing or to the fairground.
They met up for lunch, invariably fish and chips, and the afternoons were usually spent much the same way as the mornings. Evenings, they went to the pictures or played Monopoly in the lounge. The guest house was half full and there were a few other children for Georgie and Billy to play with. After the children had gone to bed, several guests stayed to listen to the wireless. To a chorus of cheers, on the first of September, it was announced that Major-General Montgomery was forcing Rommel to retreat in North Africa, though the news wasn’t all good: Stalingrad was now under siege.
Kitty was beginning to get on well with the boys. They’d started to call her ‘Auntie Kitty’, but she told them just Kitty was enough. ‘I’m your sister, aren’t I? You don’t call your sister auntie!’
‘Our sister!’ They stared at her, amazed. It was funny, Kitty thought, but they weren’t nearly so plain as she’d first thought. The more she grew to like them, the better-looking they became. They got on like a house on fire with Dad. What was also funny, was the fact it was the lads who seemed to be making Dad happy, not Theresa. He seemed like a man reborn when he played football with them on the sands.
Her dad had changed unrecognisably from the man he’d been a year ago. ‘Just like me!’ Kitty thought. ‘Except whereas he’s changed for the better, I’ve changed for the worse. I’m not nearly so nice as I was.’
Sometimes, she wished life was still the same as it used to be, that she’d managed to convince Miss Ellis at the Labour Exchange that she needed to stay home with Jimmy. But if that had been the case, she would never have worked at the hospital. She would never have met Lucy and Harriet, or Martin McCabe and all the other sailors who had briefly flickered across her life.
On Thursday, a man of about Kitty’s age appeared in the dining room for breakfast. He wore a smart black pin-striped suit and sat alone at his table, eating his food idly and smiling to himself. Several times, he spoke aloud. Georgie and Billy nudged each other and giggled, and Jimmy tapped the side of his forehead and whispered, ‘He’s obviously a penny short of a shilling.’
After the man had gone, the landlady came into the dining room. She was a florid woman with dyed black hair and crimson painted lips who always wore violently patterned overalls which, she said proudly, she made herself. ‘Don’t take any notice of Mr Grisham, he’s harmless,’ she told them. She went on to explain, in what Kitty thought was an unpleasantly ghoulish manner, that five years ago, Mr Grisham and his wife, who were from Birkenhead, had spent their honeymoon at her guest house. The following year, they’d come with their new baby, and the year after with their second-born. They continued to come, even after the war had started. ‘He had a good job as a bank clerk. They wouldn’t take him in the army because he had a weak chest, but that didn’t stop him joining the ARP.’ The landlady’s eyes glittered. She was clearly enjoying her role at centre stage. ‘One night during the May Blitz, the poor man was out doing his duty when his house took a direct hit and his wife and two kids were killed!’
She paused for effect and the guests dutifully supplied gasps of genuine horror. ‘His mum looks after him now, but he comes back regularly.’ She giggled. ‘He thinks his wife and kids are with him. That’s who he was talking to at the table.’
Kitty saw Mr Grisham walking on the sands later that morning and went up to him. ‘Hallo, we’re both at the same hotel.’ He was a very ordinary man with thinning hair and light brown eyes, and looked rather incongruous on the beach in his formal clothes.
‘Hallo.’ He smiled at her, quite friendly, and they chatted about the weather for a while.
Kitty thought he seemed quite normal. ‘I was just about to buy myself a cup of tea. Would you care to join me?’
‘That’s awfully nice of you, but I’m looking for my wife.’ He glanced anxiously up and down the beach. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen her? She’s not very tall with brown hair and I think she’s wearing a blue dress this morning. She has two small children with her.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kitty said sadly, ‘but I haven’t seen anyone like that.’
‘Never mind, I’m sure to find her soon.’ He tipped an invisible hat and continued with his walk.
Kitty stared after his retreating figure. She felt ashamed that she’d let herself get in such a state over Dale when there were people who’d suffered a million times more than she had. Compared to them, Dale was just a pinprick. It made her even more ashamed that she was using these other people’s suffering to lessen her own. She walked back to the guest house and was pleased to find the lounge empty so she could sit and think. ‘I’ve got to do something with me life. I can’t go on the way I’ve done the last few weeks. What on earth must Jess think of me? I feel dead embarrassed over the way I’ve behaved.’
She’d hated every minute of the dances. ‘I can’t go back to that. I wonder if I could join the forces?’
The prospect of becoming a Wren or a WAAF was rather appealing. ‘That’s if they’d allow me to leave the hospital.’ She was already working in an essential occupation. Nowadays, you couldn’t just up and leave a job without permission from the Government.
‘Hello there, kiddo.’ Jimmy came into the room looking happily exhausted.
‘Where’s the boys?’
‘I left them playing with some other kids outside.’ He gave Kitty a pretend punch. ‘Are you enjoying yourself, luv?’
‘Much better than I expected,’ Kitty conceded with a smile. ‘I’m having a lazy ould time, but me head’s been hard at work trying to sort me life out.’
‘That bloody Yank!’ swore Jimmy. ‘I’d like to kill him.’
‘It taught me a lesson, Dad.’ She no l
onger thought, ‘How could he do this to me?’ but ‘Why did I let it happen?’
‘Aye, but not a lesson y’needed to learn. I’d like to see you married, girl, with a family of your own.’
It was an effort for Kitty not to smile. He’d done his level best for ten years to make sure that didn’t happen. ‘I know you would, Dad,’ she said gently, ‘but I can’t see meself getting married for a long while.’ That’s if she got married at all. Out of the blue, a sense of desperate loneliness swept over her, more keenly than it had ever done before. Staying with Jessica was only supposed to be temporary. If she carried on as she was, she would end up living alone, a spinster in an unskilled job with only the memory of an unhappy affair to keep her company in bed at night.
Kitty made up her mind there and then. The minute she got back to Bootle, she would do something drastic. Somehow, in some way, she’d set her life on an entirely different course.
The Dorchester Hotel was widely used by American servicemen and Jessica continued to meet Gus there for dinner once or twice a week. The staff in the Provost Marshal’s office in Burtonwood had the hotel number and knew where to contact him if he was needed. He refused to stay for long in Pearl Street. ‘You haven’t got a phone, Jess. Say there’s an emergency?’
‘There’s an emergency,’ said Jessica the first time he complained.
‘It’s not funny. It could be something crucial.’
‘You should have more confidence in your staff. You should delegate more.’
‘Is that Jessica Fleming, businesswoman, speaking?’ he said coldly.
Soon afterwards he left, looking annoyed. Jessica was slightly put out, feeling she should be put first, not the American Eighth Army Air Force, but eventually came to the conclusion that if he’d stayed, she would have thought less of him. Gus wasn’t going to dance to her tune like Arthur or be coaxed around like Jack. Gus was his own man, which was what had drawn her to him in the first place. She would have to get used to not having her own way, at least not all the time!