by Janet Tanner
Tonight, however, with his mind full of his troubles Eddie was unable to relax and take advantage of Doris’s hospitality.
‘Whatever is the matter, dear? You do seem ever so edgy,’ she chided him gently. She was sitting on the sofa, legs crossed, leaning forward so that her ample décolletage was displayed at the sweetheart neckline of her dress, scarlet lips parted invitingly. This was usually the first step in an inevitable routine which ended up in Doris’s cheerfully untidy bedroom, but tonight Eddie knew his performance as a lover was likely to be woeful.
‘I fancy a drink,’ he said. ‘How about you?’
Doris gazed at him in frank amazement.
‘You’ve got to be joking! Everyone down the local knows my Alf.’
Eddie did not bring to her attention that with his car parked outside her door regularly his being here was hardly a state secret.
‘We could go into town,’ he suggested.
She considered. ‘Well, I suppose we could …’
‘There must be plenty of pubs where you aren’t known.’ he said. ‘We’ll make it a quick one, eh?’
‘Oh, all right.’ Doris’s good nature made her amenable to any suggestion.
Once outside, Eddie began to wonder about the wisdom of his idea and he wished he could leave the car with its incriminating cargo here in the suburbs rather than driving it into town where some keen and conscientious young copper might take more than a passing interest in it. But Doris would think it most odd if he suggested taking a bus. There was nothing for it, he would have to drive the car and hope he didn’t do anything to attract attention to himself – or the car boot!
They went to a public house in the centre of Bath and after a few drinks Eddie began to feel better. In the public bar someone was hammering out popular songs on a honky-tonk style piano and voices raised in chorus floated through to the lounge bar where Eddie and Doris sat squeezed into a leather-covered settle. Doris hummed along with the music – ‘You made me love you, I didn’t wanna do it, I didn’t wanna do it…’ and looked at him coquettishly from beneath half-lowered eyelids, and each time she leaned forward to get her gin and orange her breast brushed against Eddie’s arm. He felt a sweat begin to break out on his forehead that had nothing to do with the stolen goods hidden in the boot of his car. Perhaps after all be would be able to forget his worries for a little while if he and Doris went back to her place …
‘Drink up,’ he said.
‘Oh my!’ Her eyes teased him across the rim of her glass. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you tonight. Eddie. First you want to come out, then you can’t wait to get home again. Talk about messing a girl about!’
‘Do you want another drink then?’ Eddie asked. ‘I’ll get you another if you like.’
‘No, no,’ she giggled. ‘It’s all right. There’s some things more intoxicating than liquor, wouldn’t you say?’ She leaned over and touched his knee and he stood up, lifting the glass-topped table aside so that they could both get out.
‘You’re right there, my girl, and I shall be showing you what one of them is right here unless you watch your step!’
She skipped in front of him very nimbly in view of the size of her ample behind.
‘Promises, promises!’
They drove back. To Eddie’s annoyance the space outside Doris’s gate had been occupied by a motor cycle die and sidecar and he had to park some way down the road.
Once inside the house Doris wasted no time in leading Eddie upstairs and soon his worries about the stolen goods were forgotten in the delights of Doris’s voluptuous body.
They were still in bed when the air raid siren sounded. Eddie swore but Doris merely nestled closer.
‘I’spect it’s just a false alarm. Let’s ignore it, shall we?’
Eddie was not so sure. He did not care for air raid sirens. But Doris’s big comfortable breasts felt good against his bare chest and her arm lay across him, pinning him down. He ran his hand down her back, gripping the plump rounded bottom.
‘Sounds like a good idea to me.’
The mournfull wail of the siren was still echoing in their ears when they heard the heavy bomber engines. The house began to vibrate to them and Eddie’s natural caution made him stiffen.
‘It’s not a bloody false alarm.’
The words were scarcely out when they heard the first bomb fall, screaming down through the air, and the dull thud as it hit the ground made all the windows in the house rattle.
‘Jesus!’ He sat bolt upright, thrusting Doris aside and reaching for his shirt, discarded on the floor beside the bed. ‘Where’s the nearest shelter?’.
‘Down the road. But we’re too late to go there.’ She still sounded calm and lazy, unruffled by the German planes overhead: Eddie controlled an urge to shake her.
‘For God’s sake, we can’t stay here! Not with a raid on!’ He was pulling on his trousers now, his shirt still unbuttoned, flapping around him. Another bomb fell. He heard it whistling down, followed swiftly by another and another.
‘They’re bombing Bath! The bastards are bombing Bath!’ He was beside himself now with fear and Doris’s seeming indifference only served to heighten his panic. ‘Have you got a cupboard under the stairs?’
‘Yes …’ She was out of bed now too, standing naked in the patch of moonlight that filtered through the half-open curtains, but the sight of her plump white body did not excite him now. He threw her a robe that was hanging over the door.
‘Get some clothes on, you silly bitch! Come on!’
He grabbed her arm, bundling her along the landing. Another bomb whistled down and the explosion this time was so close that the ground shook beneath their feet.
‘Christ almighty!’ Eddie yelled. He started down the stairs at a run, holding onto the bannister with one hand and his trousers with the other for his braces were dangling uselessly down over his backside. Doris was on his heels, stirred at last out of her lazy calm.
They had reached the bottom of the stairs when the next bomb fell. Eddie made one last hopeless rush for the cupboard, Doris froze on the bottom step, an expression of utter surprise on her normally immobile features.
‘Oh Eddie!’ she said in a pained voice; as if he personally was to blame for the sudden disaster.
And then the world caved in around them.
Hillsbridge was buzzing with it. The fact that Bath was in ruins would have been news enough for three heavy raids had left a trail of death and destruction across the beautiful city with churches gutted, schools in ruins and stately Georgian buildings reduced to a pile of rubble. But for the people of Hillsbridge there was one particular aspect which added spice to the otherwise bare facts. Eddie Roberts was among the dead – and the circumstances in which his body had been discovered were discussed with a mixture of ribaldry and relish but very little sympathy. In spite of his hail-fellow-well-met manner Eddie was not the most popular man in Hillsbridge.
‘What’s think of Eddie Roberts then?’ Ewart Brixey asked the gathering of regulars in the Miners Arms. ‘Bit of a turn up for the books, ain’t it?’
‘What be on about?’ Stanley Bristow enquired, slurping his beer with relish – it was not always possible to get his brand of bitter nowadays.
‘Eddie Roberts. He was killed when they bombed Bath Saturday night.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ Stanley shook his head and wiped the foam from his lip with an unsteady hand. ‘You never know what you’m going to hear these days and that’s a fact.’
‘And you haven’t heard the best of it,’ Ewart chortled. ‘You’ll never guess where they found’un. In some woman’s house. Both pinned down by rubble as they was coming down the stairs to look for shelter, I suppose. And neither of them had a stitch on, or so I heard.’
‘You want to mind what you’m saying,’ Walter Clements warned him. ‘You can get your clothes torn off with the blast, you know.’
‘Maybe, but I’ll bet it weren’t bomb blast that tore off Eddie’s!’ E
wart laughed.
‘You mind his mother don’t get to hear what you’re saying. She’ll be having you up for defamation of character,’ Walter warned.
Ewart laughed again. ‘That’s a long word, Walter! Your missus give you the dictionary for yer tea, did she? Anyway, that’s not all. His car was parked up the road a bit and were hardly touched by the bomb, ’cept all the windows were broke. And what do you think they found in the boot? All that stuff that was nicked from the Catholic Hut!’
‘That’s never right!’ Stanley Bristow said in disbelief.
‘Oh ah’tis. Tich Carey told me and he’s a Special Constable so he ought to know. So what d’you think of that? Our councillor not only having a bit on the side but a thief as well!’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure!’ Stanley muttered. ‘Well, I never did!’
‘You never know with folk, do you?’ Walter added.
They shook their heads and sipped their beer. It was true – you never knew. Eddie Roberts had been a dark horse and no mistake.
The subject was a nine-days wonder in Hillsbridge. But with the war providing new topics of conversation almost daily it was soon forgotten.
Chapter Twenty-three
Barbara’s baby was born a week later than Dr Hobbs had predicted, on Friday, 3rd July.
‘Friday’s child is loving and giving,’ smiled the midwife, a trained and uniformed professional employed by Lady Erica to stay at Hillsbridge House as long as she was needed, as she placed the small, tightly wrapped bundle in Barbara’s arms.
Barbara looked down at the child with a feeling of wonder. She had never thought of herself as a maternal type and was totally unprepared for the rush of love she felt as she looked at the small round face beneath a cap of silky hair, the button nose, the little rosebud mouth. Tired as she was she found the energy to loosen the wrappings sufficiently to examine one tiny hand, marvelling at the little fingers each tipped with a pearly nail and wonder that this new little person could actually be the lump which had been weighing her down over the past months.
She was still engrossed in the baby when Marcus came in to see her. He had an armful of roses which he deposited on the bed to the annoyance of the midwife.
‘Goodness me, whatever next!’ she fussed, grabbing them up.
‘But they’re beautiful!’ Barbara objected. She was always thrilled when Marcus brought her flowers.
‘Beautiful they may be. They could also be crawling with insects. They must go in a vase on the dressing table well away from baby!’ the midwife said sternly and disappeared to find someone to carry out her orders.
‘Bossyboots!’ Barbara whispered and she and Marcus exchanged smiles. Things had been much better between them lately – and it showed. Once Marcus had accepted that the baby was his it had done wonders for him and he had become every inch the proud father-to-be. His temper had improved and he had indulged Barbara’s every whim, including agreeing to her continuing to work for the Civil Nursing Reserve as long as Dr Hobbs had allowed it. His newfound confidence spilled over into his work, too, and Sir Richard found less cause to criticise his handling of the estates. All in all life had been a good deal more pleasant and Barbara hoped that their shared joy in the baby would help this happy state of affairs to continue.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ she said, still feasting her eyes on the little miracle which she had produced.
‘You both are,’ Marcus said – and it was true. Propped against the pillows, wearing a new silk bedjacket and with a touch of lipstick to lend colour to her pale face, it was difficult to believe Barbara had so recently been through eighteen hours of labour. ‘What are we going to call her?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Barbara said. ‘I’d like to call her Hope.’
‘Hope, eh?’ He had been thinking more on the lines of a family name – Elizabeth perhaps, or Frances, after his grandmothers. But still … ‘I suppose it’s a pretty enough name,’ he said.
‘I think so,’ Barbara said without explaining her reasoning.
That Hope might be an omen for the future.
Throughout the months while summer became autumn and autumn winter it seemed that Barbara’s optimism might be justified. She was engrossed in her baby in a way she had never believed possible and life took on a new meaning. Now that she had Hope to care for the days were no longer endless but full and satisfying. She was a good child who rarely cried and soon she was sleeping through the night and giving her mother a long unbroken rest. Barbara delighted in pushing her out every day while the fine weather lasted, talking to her constantly though she was too young to understand and often calling in to see Charlotte who was now all alone and taking a great delight in her newest great grandchild.
Marcus’s good humour, too, appeared to be lasting. It was as if becoming a father had gone a good way to restoring his confidence in himself just as Dr Hobbs had predicted and he even discussed the estates with Barbara in the evenings when they sat with Hope during her wakeful period, instead of sharing the company of his parents as they had done in the days before Hope’s arrival.
Only two things marred the halcyon days. The first was that Alec had been reported missing after the fall of Singapore and there was still no word of him.
Charlotte talked a great deal to Barbara about Alec on the occasions when she visited her, recalling the agony she had been through when Ted had been missing in the Great War, and expressing her sympathy for Sarah, her daughter-in-law, who was now experiencing the same torment.
‘It’s not knowing that’s the worst,’ she said, jiggling Hope on her knee. ‘You don’t know whether to go on hoping or prepare yourself for the worst. I was lucky. Our Ted came back. I only hope it’s the same with Alec.’
Barbara nodded. She did not repeat what Marcus had said to her – that if Alec was in the hands of the Japs he would probably be better off dead. The Japs were even more inhumane than the Germans, he had said, the conditions in the Far East were intolerable, with disease rife and wounds turning septic in the steamy tropical heat. There was no point in worrying her grandmother any more than she was already.
‘The sad part is, if it hadn’t been for all that other business I don’t suppose this would ever have happened,’ Charlotte went on and Barbara knew she was referring to his affair with Bryda Deacon. ‘I saw Joan the other day, you know, and she was asking after Alec. She’s still carrying a candle for him if you ask me. You’d think she’d have found somebody else by now, a fine girl like her. But no, she hasn’t, and somehow I don’t think she will.’
‘It must have been awful to be jilted at the altar like that,’ Barbara said. ‘I shouldn’t think you’d ever get over something like that.’
‘I don’t know what Alec was thinking of,’ Charlotte said sadly. ‘Still, there you are, that’s life, I suppose. At least you’ve done well for yourself, Barbara, though I might as well say I had my doubts about whether it was the right thing in the beginning.’
Barbara smiled, but her grandmother’s words served to remind her of Huw and the recent worrying news of what he was doing – no longer flying Spitfires and Hurricanes but taking Ansons and Lysanders into France on secret missions.
‘I don’t like it one bit,’ Amy had said when she told Barbara about it. ‘It sounds terribly dangerous to me. But Huw was so grateful to have been brought out himself and so impressed by the work the Resistance are doing that he wanted to help. And I suppose with a war on all flying is risky. All we can do is pray it’s all over soon and Huw will be all right.’
Barbara now silently repeated the prayer she said every night when there was a moon and a sky clear enough to make her think Huw might be flying.
‘I don’t think it will go on too much longer now,’ she said, trying to be her old optimistic self. ‘Things are bound to be better now the Americans are in.’
Charlotte snorted. She had less faith than most people in the ‘Yanks’. Too flashy for her liking, they were, with their chewing gum and t
heir parcels of butter, chocolate and nylons, and their belief that they could put the world to rights the minute they wagged their little fingers. But at least it was true that Hitler now had most of the civilised world to contend with.
‘Let’s hope you’re right, Babs,’ she said, shifting Hope to reveal a wet patch on her skirt. ‘Now, I reckon you’d better change this baby’s napkin if you don’t want World War III starting right here in my kitchen!’
As winter set in Barbara continued to push Hope out whenever it was fine enough, covering her thick fair hair with a woolly bonnet and muffling her in blankets up to her chin. She was amused at the way the baby’s button nose turned into a little cherry and she refused to pay any heed to Lady Erica’s warning that Hope should not be out in the cold.
‘Fresh air is good for her,’ she argued. ‘She’s never had so much as a sniffle yet and I don’t believe she will.’
By the middle of November Hope was settling down to a pattern of three feeds a day with a late top-up at about eleven at night and Marcus sprung a surprise on Barbara. The Desert Song was playing at the Theatre Royal in Bath the following week and he had got tickets.
Barbara was ridiculously excited at the prospect. It was so long since she had been anywhere and though she had been too engrossed in Hope to care, now that an outing had been arranged she could hardly wait. When the day arrived she laid her clothes out in good time and washed her hair. She was giving Hope her feed when Marcus arrived home earlier than usual and she sat on the nursing stool in the bedroom with Hope at her breast, chattering with him about his day as he changed from the tweed jacket he wore for work to a dark suit and pristine white shirt.