It was strange being outside after all the months in bed. The sunlight was harsh and holding on to the wall with one hand she shaded her face with the other. The air was cooling to her feverish cheek, the touch of the rough stone wall somehow reassuringly familiar. She curiously touched the scars where the metal railing and gates had been ripped out months ago in the drive for scrap metal. Touching these things, feeling the sun on her face were pleasant, half-forgotten sensations.
She heard the sound of her own feet, hesitant and slow, tapping softly on the pavement, and further off, the rumble of a cart and the hooves of a plodding horse came to her ears. She imagined the touch of the animal’s coat, smoothing it somewhat fearfully as she had as a small child. There were people in the distance, vague and unaware of her. She tried to call out to them, suddenly afraid and alone. Her weakness had intensified and she wondered tearfully how she would get back to the house only a few yards away. She went on, telling herself that if she walked as far as the corner, Joseph would be there, smiling, lifting her and carrying her back to the dim safety of her room, away from the glare of the bright sun. She had to stop every few yards to catch her breath and rest her legs by leaning against a garden wall. At the end of the road she gave a sigh of disappointment and fell.
Jumping off the bus, anxious now she was close to home. Mrs Beynon saw the crowd at the end of the road and hesitated at her gate. She almost went to investigate but instead she went in and ran up to Dolly’s room, calling as she went. ‘Dolly, love. It’s all right. Joseph isn’t hurt bad, he’s only got a few—‘ Her voice faded as she ran into the bedroom and saw the empty bed. She went through the rest of the house, then the garden, calling, sobbing with fear, guilt at leaving her, a sharp and very real pain in her heart. With rising dread, she went out of the house to where the crowd had increased and had been joined by an ambulance and its crew.
* * *
Joseph signed himself out as soon as he was told about his wife’s collapse. He went to the ward where she had been taken and stood, looking down at the small insubstantial body under the smooth covers, this unmoving child-like girl who had once been a vibrant, energetic young woman. Her skin was perfectly lovely and he reached out to touch her cheek, willing her to open her eyes and look at him.
A nurse hovered and once gave Dolly a sip of some liquid that Joseph thought might be a medicine or a drug she was taking regularly to ease the pain. When they were alone he talked to her, reminding her of their long-ago yesterdays when they had fun and the days were filled with plans and ambitions and laughter, so much laughter. Max’s songs came into his mind. ‘Life is a stage and waiting in the wings is yesterday.’
She died early the following morning when he had left her side briefly to stretch his legs by walking along the corridor and back.
‘Why did I leave her?’ he wailed when the nurse confirmed his fears. ‘I should have stayed. She shouldn’t have died all alone.’
‘They sometimes prefer it and will wait until there’s no one with them, so they can relax and gently slip away,’ the nurse told him comfortingly.
* * *
Shirley read the local paper but she didn’t notice the announcement of Dolly Beynon’s death in the columns dedicated to those items. It was a part of the paper she rarely glanced at, being too young to worry about such things. Besides, if she had read it the name would not have registered with her; she did not know of Dolly’s existence.
Joseph had failed to turn up to take them to the Saturday dance and had not been in to apologise.
‘Seems he’s got fed up with us,’ Janet sighed.
‘Then book yourselves a taxi.’ Shirley’s mother insisted. ‘You can walk to the hall but I don’t like you wandering around late at night. With this nuisance of a black-out you can’t see a hand in front of you and you could have an accident.’
The girls were becoming well known for their singing and dancing and would often be asked to perform at the local dances. On this night they had danced and sang three numbers and later were approached by a man who told them they should audition for ENSA, the organisation that travelled around entertaining the troops.
‘I couldn’t do that,’ Shirley laughed. ‘l’ve got to be there in the mornings to get the newspapers out!’
‘And the stall-holders in the market wouldn’t thank me for not being there to serve their tea and coffee,’ Janet added.
The man introduced himself as Henry Thomas and gave them a card on which he had written his address and telephone number. Janet took it and tucked it into her handbag. She shrugged and said to Shirley, ‘You never know. Things might change.’
‘I think I’ll write to Max and ask him if he knows anything about this Henry Thomas,’ Shirley said thoughtfully as they waited for the taxi to take them home.
* * *
Joseph didn’t go to work and he stayed out of the house as much as possible. He knew it was hard for his mother: all the caring she had done had filled her days and now she was left with a house that echoed with the hollowness of sad memories. He should stay with her, help her, but he couldn’t. Walking into the house and not running up to talk to Dolly seemed to be a constant punishment.
He didn’t escort Shirley and Janet to the dance the following week either. Instead he pushed a note through the shop door telling them only that he was unable to go due to family commitments.
The Two Jays were chosen to open an old music-hall style ‘Singalong’ that week and in great excitement the girls went back to Shirley’s flat to look through some old-fashioned clothes they had been offered and to discuss costume and music. It was as Shirley was opening the door for Janet to leave that she saw Joseph.
‘Hi yer, Joseph, where have you been’? What d’you think! We’re opening the prom concert in August and now we’ve been asked to do some old music-hall numbers dressed for the part an’ all. Good, eh?’
He didn’t walk across to congratulate them; he just waved and called a greeting.
‘Hey, come on, you old misery! Come and congratulate us properly,’ she called as she ran towards him. It was dark but even in the blackout on that moonless night she could make out the armband on his pale jacket sleeve.
‘Joseph, you’ve lost someone? The war, is it? Oh, not your mam I hope,’ she said at once, showing concern. This must explain his absence.
‘Not my mother, but someone who’s been ill for a couple of years. It was Dolly, my wife.’
‘Your wife?’ Shirley gasped.
To his utter disbelief, she then slapped him hard across the face, again and again.
Janet ran over and held her as she rained repeated blows on him.
‘Shirley.’ he gasped, trying to hold her arms. ‘What’s all this for?’
‘Not telling me you were married, that’s what! Sorry I am that she died, but not as sorry as I am for you. Joseph Beynon! Carrying on, dancing, enjoying yourself, and with a sick wife waiting for you at home!’
‘What business is it of yours?’ Joseph asked coldly. ‘Have I ever done anything, said anything to you that my wife couldn’t have heard?’
‘You lied!’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said as he hurried away.
‘I risked getting a bad reputation because of you,’ Shirley shouted after him. ‘People will accuse me of being a tart, carrying on with a married man!’
Janet shrugged, guiding her friend back inside. ‘I suppose he’s right. He only made sure we were safely home, never a hint of more.’
‘He still should have told us!’ She turned to go back inside. ‘I shouldn’t have hit him, mind, should I?’ Shock and dismay turned to laughter and giggles as they went back up to the living room to discuss it.
‘I don’t expect he’ll get a worse response than yours when he tells people his news,’ Janet agreed, trying to stop the inexplicable merriment caused by shock and not lack of concern. ‘“My wife is dead.” Thump. “Oh, is she? Then take this.” Thump.’
Laughter faded as
quickly as it began and they cried in shame for their reaction and for the woman called Dolly whom they had never known.
Joseph walked home hating his life and hating Dolly, momentarily, for becoming ill and then leaving him.
Shirley constantly watched the door waiting for Joseph to walk in the following day. She was trembling with humiliation, dreading seeing him but at the same time wanting to get it over. How could she have done that? How could she have hit him after being told he had just lost his wife? What crime had he committed by escorting herself and Janet to a few dances without telling them he had a wife?
She was serving a customer with cigarettes; foreign cigarettes as the supply of the well-known brands were sold out until the next allocation arrived. She knew it was Joseph standing in the doorway and tried not to look in his direction. When the customer left she couldn’t ignore him any longer. She lifted the flap of the counter, walked through and stood facing him. ‘Joseph, I’m so sorry. Sorry for the loss of your wife and sorry I hit you. I don’t know what got into me.’ Then his arms were around her and they were kissing, half hidden by the door, and her head was swimming in a whirlpool of sensations that were completely new.
Close to them people were walking past and she was unaware of them. Her world began and ended with Joseph’s lips and his arms pressing her against him.
When he released her, she stepped back and stared at him. She couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say.
‘I’ve wanted to do that from the first time I saw you,’ Joseph whispered, pushing the door shut as a customer tried to enter. Foolishly, Shirley muttered something about having to serve and, after staring at her for a long moment, he stood aside and allowed the door to open.
‘What time d’you close?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I mean—’ Bewildered, some part of her mind told her she must not allow this. With a wife so recently dead it was not right. ‘I don’t know,’ she repeated. ‘Janet and I are going—’ In vain she tried to think of where she and Janet were going but the words wouldn’t form a sentence. How could a kiss addle her brain like this?
‘I’ll be here at six and I’ll tell you all about Dolly,’ he said, as two women came in and began looking through the magazines.
‘No, I can’t, it’s too soon, it’s wrong, Janet and I are going—‘ she babbled.
‘I’ll be here at six,’ he said softly, as the two women looked at them with curiosity creasing their brows.
When her mother was not back from Castle’s beach café by five minutes to six, Shirley locked the door, pulled the shop blinds and black-out curtains and hurried up to the flat. She didn’t answer his knocking.
Six
Eirlys seemed to be running around in circles. The more tasks she dealt with, the more piled up waiting for her attention. The activities included in the Holidays At Home season were slowly coming to an end, but now her time was spent catching up with routine work at the office she had been forced to neglect. And all the while there were her father’s affairs to sort out.
She juggled their finances and managed them with such skill, she thought she could deal with the National Debt. Gradually she was getting things under control.
Her life seemed to be spent buried in books and lists of debts. She rarely went out and only letters from Ken and Max and their occasional visits kept her in touch with the outside world. She was not discontented; as always she relished a challenge and making sense of the chaos left by Teresa was certainly that, she told Ken in one of her letters to him.
Ken’s letters were usually filled with amusing stories about the various concerts he and Max organised. One was different. It was short and contained only one subject. He asked her to marry him.
As she sat reading and rereading his words, she was tempted. To have someone with whom to share all the problems that life threw at her seemed like bliss. She stared into space over the table, filled as always with sheaves of papers and lists, and yet more lists, and dreamed. To be free of her father, to have a place of her own, that was the dream, but it was one she could never achieve. She knew she could never leave him. She was certain too that she couldn’t accept Ken’s proposal. If she did, she would be marrying him for all the wrong reasons and he deserved more than that.
She replied affectionately and told Ken she was flattered, but needed time to think about it, time to get her father’s life in order.
* * *
For several days following the strange meeting with Joseph that culminated in a kiss, Shirley pleaded ill health and stayed away from the shop. She hid upstairs in the Hat and didn’t answer the door to anyone except Janet. The owner stood in for her and when she was not working for the Castles, Hetty did a few shifts too. Being supposedly ill meant Shirley couldn’t go dancing either, and Janet came each evening and kept her company.
They practised a few new numbers and wondered wistfully whether one day they might be brave enough to go to Drury Lane Theatre and audition for ENSA, join a troupe and entertain the armed forces. The thought of leaving home and everything familiar was a bit frightening even though they were at an age when most women were married and had children and had, in some cases, moved far away from their families, and the women’s services had taken many young women to fight alongside men. They thought of these things and knew they weren’t ready. Not yet.
After a week, Janet went to a dance on her own. She knew enough people there to feel comfortable walking in unaccompanied. The same crowd went most weeks, and girls dancing with girls had become the norm since so many boys had been called up. And, she reminded herself, she could always go home if she didn’t enjoy it.
Max came in at half-time, when drinks and a few snacks were being served. He seemed very pleased to see her and took both her hands and demanded, ‘I want the next dance and the one after that. I’ve been travelling all day to get to an appointment early tomorrow and I’m off again tomorrow afternoon. Dancing with you will make a boring couple of days into a holiday.’
They were persuaded to sing halfway through the second half, their voices blending sweetly in two Hoagy Carmichael numbers, ‘Stardust’ and ‘I Get Along Without You Very Well’. He sang the second song to her, looking at her so lovingly that she wondered how she could possibly continue to sing. The audience loved it.
‘I can’t sing like Shirley,’ she said as they danced later. ‘She can really get a number over to an audience. She puts everything into her dancing and singing.’
‘Your voice is different. Softer, more intimate, and tonight the crowd loved you.’ He held her closer, bending to touch his lips to her cheek. ‘And as for dancing, I love the way you dance, Janet.’
* * *
Joseph tried to write to Shirley to explain why he hadn’t told her about Dolly but the words refused to come. He threw away the latest effort and went to Dolly’s room to start the painful task of clearing out her belongings. He found it strangely embarrassing looking through her things. They had never lived as man and wife and it was as though he were prying through the life story of a stranger.
There were a great many books. She had been an avid reader until the last few months when holding a book had become wearisome. It was then he had begun to read to her regularly, and her request was usually for books she had read before, reminding herself of past pleasures through the familiar words.
The clothes he had bought her, hardly worn, he thought his mother could take to the Salvation Army. They would be sent to cities and towns where bombing had destroyed houses and people had lost all their belongings. Many of her personal items such as the dressing-table set and the toys she had kept since a child would go to one of the sales being regularly organised to raise money for various war charities.
When he got to the drawer in which her correspondence was stored he hesitated. He needed to look through the letters so he could write to her friends and tell them of her death, but it would feel even more like prying. Letters continuing to arrive for her would be upsetting both to
him and his mother. Taking pen and paper he listed the names and addresses of everyone who had written, then, when he thought he had finished, he found a sealed envelope at the bottom of the drawer addressed to himself.
It was a long time before he could face opening it. Would it be criticism of his behaviour? He had thought many times since her death of the hours she had spent alone while he was working, or out dancing or just walking around to avoid spending too much time in her presence, hoping she would be asleep before he returned.
He felt ashamed. Why hadn’t he been more caring, less selfish? Taking a deep breath to prepare himself for the hurt that must be revealed on the pages, he slit open the envelope. Dolly’s words, so poignant coming after her death, moved him to tears. She did nothing but thank him, tell him how blessed she had been to have had such a husband. The letter ran to three pages and on the third the writing changed, became more ragged as she told him that she hoped he would quickly find someone else and marry her.
‘You need a wife, a home and children to make your life complete, and I beg you not to allow any feelings of loyalty or guilt to hold you back from those wonderful things. I can’t be there to share them with you, but as I write this letter I hope and pray that you will achieve them soon.’
Joseph showed the letter to his mother. ‘I’m confused between a growing love for Shirley and guilt for not deserving such praise from Dolly. I didn’t love her, not as she loved me,’ he said sadly.
‘With no family of her own she needed you, Joseph. Dependence, that was the core of her love for you; it had to be, she was young, vulnerable and afraid. It’s what love becomes in a situation like yours. Everybody moves on, but she was held in a timewarp, she was still the bride waiting for life to begin.’ She hugged him and whispered, ‘Poor Dolly. She had all she needed from you. However much you tell yourself you let her down, you made her happy.’
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 73