by Ellie Dean
‘I’ll learn to love him again,’ Sarah said stubbornly.
‘And what if he doesn’t come back?’ Peggy asked softly. ‘You will have made an enormous sacrifice, but to what end?’
‘That’ll be my punishment for not staying faithful,’ Sarah retorted.
‘Please, Sarah,’ Peggy sighed. ‘Don’t make any hasty decisions now. You’re overwrought and not thinking clearly. We’ve both heard the reports coming out of Malaya, Burma and Siam, and it would be a miracle if anyone comes out of those camps alive.’
‘As Mother said in her letter, miracles happen. She’s not about to lose faith in them surviving, and neither will I.’ Sarah lit another cigarette. ‘Pops is strong and fit for a man his age. He’s used to the heat and humidity and the rigours of managing a rubber plantation. Philip’s young and sturdy, a gifted polo player and sportsman. They’ll come through.’
Peggy realised the girl was determined to believe her brave words, but the fittest of men could be poleaxed by malaria, typhoid or an infected wound, and as the Japs had refused to allow the Red Cross to send parcels or enter their POW camps, there was no way of knowing what else the prisoners were being subjected to.
There had been rumours of servicemen being used as slave labour – of mass graves in the jungles outside the camps, and even of women and children forced to endure the most awful hardships in places unfit for swine.
Peggy voiced none of these thoughts. Sarah knew as much as she did, but was choosing to ignore it as she clung to hope. ‘Will you show your mother’s letter to Cordelia?’ she asked hesitantly.
Sarah shook her head. ‘Best not to. She’d only fret.’
‘Just promise me you’ll take time to think things over before you write to Delaney,’ Peggy urged.
Sarah stubbed out the cigarette, got to her feet and shook her head. ‘He deserves a quick reply,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to let him go on hoping, and a clean cut is best. He’ll understand that.’
Peggy very much doubted it, and suspected that Delaney would be hurt and confused by her sudden change of heart, and probably blame it on himself for having lied to her. It couldn’t be a worse situation for either of them.
‘Just be careful, Sarah,’ she warned softly. ‘Delaney needs to have a clear head over there in France, and a letter like that—’
‘Don’t, Peggy,’ Sarah interrupted, her voice breaking. ‘It will be a hard enough letter to write, and I can’t … I can’t allow myself to think about that.’ She grabbed her handbag and gas-mask box, gave Peggy a swift hug and ran out of the room.
Peggy sank into the fireside chair and covered her face with her hands in sorrow – not only for Sarah, but for her mother and the men they waited for. The cruelties of war came in many guises, affecting each and every one of them in a different way. For Sarah and Sylvia it was the gnawing fear of not knowing what had happened to Jock and Philip amid the horrifying rumours coming out of the Far East. For her, it had struck at the very core of her family, scattering her loved ones to the four winds, leaving her bereft and in dread of seeing the post boy walking to her front door with a telegram in his hand.
Ron was escorting Rita back from the Anchor, where she’d cheered up somewhat after an hour with her fire service colleagues. They talked as they slowly went along Camden Road, Rita swinging along on her crutches while Harvey watered every lamp post, downpipe and wall he came across.
‘I know it’s easy for me to say,’ he said, ‘but try not to worry about your dad. Jack’s never been gung-ho about things – so I doubt he’ll do anything reckless.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ she replied. ‘I just wish he hadn’t written me that letter. It choked me up no end, and sort of brought the war too close for comfort. I couldn’t bear to lose him, Grandpa Ron.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ he replied, pausing to put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Just remember you aren’t alone, Rita, and that Peggy or I will always be here if you should need us.’
She leant towards him and nudged his arm before grinning up at him. ‘Yeah, and I count myself very lucky to have you. But it works both ways, Grandpa Ron. What’s been bothering you lately?’
‘Women trouble, as usual,’ he muttered. ‘But it’s nothing I can’t deal with.’
Rita giggled. ‘Well, you’re experienced enough in such things, so you should know how to charm your way out of whatever you’ve got yourself into.’
They crossed the road and Ron came to a halt at the end of the cul-de-sac. ‘Sarah has things to talk over with Peggy, so it’s best you go in through the front tonight,’ he explained.
Rita nodded her understanding, blew him a kiss and swung away towards the front steps.
Ron watched until she’d slipped indoors, and then strode up the hill and along to the back gate.
Queenie came out of nowhere like a black streak and almost tripped him up as she shot between his feet and up the steps to the kitchen.
Harvey was about to follow her when Ron heard the unmistakable sound of Peggy’s sobbing coming through the open door and grabbed his collar. ‘Go to your bed,’ he ordered softly, pointing to his basement room.
Harvey had heard the sobs too and with a whine of distress looked up at Ron in appeal.
Ron gently took his head in his hands and looked into his eyes. ‘I’ll sort it, Harvey,’ he said. ‘Go to your bed and stay there.’
Harvey’s tail was between his legs as he reluctantly obeyed. Ron shut the bedroom door and quietly went up the steps into the kitchen.
The sight of his little Peggy huddled in the chair and sobbing her heart out was too much to bear, and he crossed the room in three strides to scoop her up into his arms.
‘I’ve got you now, wee girl,’ he soothed, settling into the chair with Peggy on his lap, her head nestled into his neck. ‘There we are, there we are. It’s all right. I’m here to look after you.’
It broke his heart to hear her crying, for although he suspected she’d spent many a night sobbing into her pillow, she’d never been so openly distressed. He experienced a momentary stab of fear at the thought she might have received bad news of Jim or one of the family, but it soon became clear that she was simply beaten down by the worry and fear this war had brought, and that Sarah’s plight had proved to be the breaking of her.
Ron held her in his arms as she told him about the letters Sarah had received that day, and the choice the girl had made. He listened to her worries for the girl and her young American, and held her close as she listed all the numerous worries and fears that had beset her since the children were sent away and Jim was called up.
‘Now, Peggy, girl, you’re letting all of this get on top of you,’ he said once the flow of words and tears came to an end. He stroked her hair and could feel the tension in her slight body, and the tremor of her distress running through her.
‘You’ve spent your life loving and caring for us all, and once this war began you took on those girls and treated them as daughters. You’ve listened to our woes, consoled, advised and stood by us in times of trouble – and now it’s our turn to look after you.’
‘I don’t need looking after,’ she muttered.
‘Yes. You do,’ he said firmly, lifting her from his lap and settling her into the other armchair. He took her hands in his. ‘We’ve all been selfish,’ he said. ‘Too taken up with our own lives and worries to see that you’re wilting beneath the weight of all the responsibility we heap upon your slender wee shoulders. And it’s going to stop.’
‘But Sarah and Rita—’
‘Sarah has to make her own decisions, right or wrong. It’s what adults have to do. Rita knows she can come to me, but she’s a tough little thing and is quite capable of getting through what ails her at the moment. I can’t do much about Anne, Cissy, the boys and the grandchildren, but you have no need to worry about them, Peggy. They’re healthy and safe down in Somerset, and will come back the minute the war’s over.’
‘But Bob’s … And Charl
ie’s …’
‘Stop it, Peg,’ he said gently. ‘Those boys will come home, you’ll see. All this talk of enlisting and fighting alongside their father is just a result of all the propaganda they’re being fed day after day on the wireless and in the papers.’
Peggy withdrew her hands from his grip and cupped his face. ‘Dear Ron. What would I ever do without you?’ she sighed.
‘You’d probably have less work and fewer shenanigans to put up with,’ he said lightly, glad she seemed more like herself.
‘I heard about your latest set-to with Matron,’ she said with a ghost of a smile. ‘Whatever possessed you to take Queenie up there?’
‘Ach, the daft wee thing followed me and I had no choice.’ He chuckled and shook his head. ‘You should have seen Matron’s face. I thought she’d explode.’
Peggy lit a cigarette and regarded him through the smoke. ‘And what about you, Ron? Have things been resolved between you and Rosie?’
He frowned. ‘Sort of,’ he mumbled. ‘I got a letter this morning, hand-delivered and already opened.’ He quickly explained Rosie’s reason for leaving so suddenly, and went on to tell her about his suspicions that Ethel had been the one to keep the letter.
Peggy’s expression cleared and she smiled before telling him about the unpleasant scene with Olive in the washroom, which had led Dolly to Doris, and then into a full-frontal attack on Ethel outside the factory to retrieve Rosie’s letter. ‘There’s no doubt at all that she had it,’ Peggy finished.
‘Phew,’ breathed Ron. ‘That’s quite some bit of detection work.’ He grinned. ‘I wish I’d seen Dolly rough-handling Ethel.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It clearly wasn’t Ethel’s morning, because she ran into even more trouble later.’
Peggy eyed him sharply. ‘Ivy told us about her thieving, and how the supervisor saw her stuff fall out of her lunch tin and pockets. Has she been sacked?’
Ron took her hand and carefully went over the morning’s events. ‘She and Olive Grayson have been sent down to Hastings to await their trial,’ he said finally. ‘We won’t see either of them again in a hurry.’
‘And Stan? How’s he coping with the shame of it all?’
‘I doubt he’ll ever really get over that aspect of it, but once he recovered from the shock, he managed somehow to pull himself together and return to his old routine. Ruby and April are looking after him wonderfully well, and so I have every hope he’ll soon be our old Stan again.’
‘Oh, that poor, poor man,’ sighed Peggy. ‘We all tried to warn him she was no good. I so wish we’d been proved wrong.’
‘Love is blind, Peg. It makes fools of all of us.’
‘It’s bound to get out,’ Peggy fretted. ‘You know what this town’s like for gossip. Stan will have a hard time keeping his head up after this.’
Ron explained what Bert Williams had arranged to keep Stan’s good reputation intact. ‘Stan, Ruby, April and I decided that if questioned over Ethel’s whereabouts, they’d say she’d walked out on Stan and returned to London where she felt more at home. Once the flurry of gossip over that has died down, she’ll be forgotten and life will go on.’
‘It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?’ Peggy threw the cigarette butt into the fire, kissed his cheek and then got to her feet. ‘As long as Stan’s all right, and you’re all right, nothing much else matters,’ she murmured. ‘Goodnight, Ron. Thanks for being so loving and sweet to me. I shall sleep well tonight, and I hope you do too now you know where Rosie is.’
Ron saw to dampening down the fire for the night and filled the kettle for the morning, then checked the air-raid box was fully stocked before turning out the kitchen light.
He went down the steps, and although he was bone-weary after the long and traumatic day, he didn’t go to his room, but went outside and looked up at the stars he could just see twinkling amongst the scudding clouds.
It would be dawn in Burma now, but did his son look up at that same moon and think of his home and family? He suspected he did, but it couldn’t ease the constant ache of worry that weighed heavily on his heart. Peggy was not alone in her fears, but he would never admit it to her. It was his responsibility to look after her properly from now on – to see when she was feeling low and be there to lean on when she needed support – for his silly old tender heart couldn’t withstand seeing her so vulnerable to all her fears and cares again.
23
Ron had slept like the dead and woken refreshed to start a new day with renewed energy and a determination to stay positive regarding Rosie. He had to believe she’d come back to him when she returned to Cliffehaven, or he didn’t know how he’d cope. And he vowed to himself that if he was lucky enough to be given a second chance with Rosie, he wouldn’t take her for granted ever again.
He went outside and watched as Adolf bullied the hens, attacking them with his beak and claws, making them squawk as they tried in panic to escape him.
Ron had seen enough. He grabbed a towel from the overhead drying rack, opened the pen and gave Adolf a boot up the bum. As the vicious old beast tried to flutter up to the roof of the coop, he threw the towel over him and made a grab for his neck.
‘Right, you bastard,’ he growled. ‘It’s goodnight Vienna for you.’ One strong twist and Adolf’s reign of terror was over.
Ron carried him into the shed, chopped off his head and strung him up from a ceiling hook. The meat wouldn’t be tender enough for a roast dinner, but he’d make good tasty stock once he was plucked and gutted.
Wishing he could deal with Adolf Hitler the same way, but boosted by the accomplishment of a long-overdue job, he went back indoors, turned on the wireless and made himself a cup of tea.
Sarah joined him at the breakfast table a few minutes later, her face wan and her eyes bruised and reddened from tears and lack of sleep. Ron wanted to comfort her, but as her talk with Peggy had been in confidence and he wasn’t supposed to know anything about it, he made no comment on her appearance, and filled the awkward silence between them with idle chit-chat until she left for work.
In Ron’s opinion, she was making a terrible mistake by holding onto the hope that Philip was still alive. He wondered if she’d written that letter to the American, and dreaded to think how it would affect him. Ron knew from bitter experience how terrifying it was to have to face the enemy guns on landing beaches, but the poor wee man would have to do it after receiving what the Yanks called a ‘Dear John’ letter and that would make the going even tougher.
He drank more tea and came to the conclusion that he couldn’t do much about Sarah and her tangled love life, for things would pan out one way or another, and only time would tell if she’d made the right decision. He fed the animals and then ate some of the porridge from the pot, sneaking a bit more sugar from where Peggy had hidden it in the cake tin on the top shelf of the larder. Happy with his lot, he filled his pipe and settled back to listen to the early news.
According to the reporter, the Allies were making satisfactory progress in Normandy. The American 5th Army was now forty-two miles beyond Rome, and the troops which had been held up for five months on the Adriatic were finally advancing. There was no change on the Russian Front, and only sporadic fighting near Jassy. All air-force activity was, for the moment, fully focused on Normandy.
Ron glanced out of the window as yet another flight of heavy bombers thundered overhead with their usual escort of fighter planes. At least the weather seemed to be improving, for the sky was blue and almost cloudless.
‘Good morning,’ said Peggy, coming into the kitchen still in her nightclothes, her face showing signs that she’d had a reasonable night’s sleep. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she said, pouring a cup of tea. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘You’ll not be apologising to me for letting go once in your life,’ he said sternly. ‘I want you to promise that the next time things get on top of you, you’ll come to me and talk it over.’
‘I doubt I’ll let things go that far ag
ain,’ she murmured, ‘but thank you, Ron. I know I can count on you.’
He reached across, patted her hand and grinned. ‘I’ve something to tell you which might cheer you up. I’ve sorted out Adolf.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘How on earth did you do that?’
He chuckled. ‘Not Hitler, but our Adolf, the tyrant of the chicken coop. He’s as dead as a doornail and I’ll be plucking him later for you to boil him up into some lovely stock.’
Peggy giggled. ‘I almost feel sorry for him. What an ignominious end for such a dictator. Shame someone doesn’t do the same to the human Adolf.’
Ron put a bowl of porridge in front of her. ‘The news is all good according to the war report earlier. Hitler will get his comeuppance soon enough, I’m thinking.’
‘I sincerely hope so,’ Peggy muttered, digging into the porridge.
He sat back down and regarded her sternly. ‘You do too much, and it’s time everyone pulled their weight in this house, so I’ll be having a word with all the girls later.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said. ‘Those girls do enough. They work long hours, do their own laundry and clean their rooms as well as babysit Daisy, help with the shopping and cooking, and keep Cordelia amused.’
She cocked her head and regarded him with a twinkle in her eyes. ‘Before you start throwing your weight about, think on your own behaviour. Have you tidied your room, Ron? Is your dirty washing in the basket, or strewn about on the floor in there – and when was the last time you stood in a queue to do the shopping?’
He desperately tried to remember. ‘Last week,’ he said triumphantly. ‘To be sure I fetched the bread.’ Her expression didn’t bode well and he knew his charm wouldn’t get him out of this situation. ‘I’ll be seeing to me room today,’ he muttered. ‘With all the goings on of late, I’ve not had a minute to meself, and me shrapnel’s playing up something dreadful.’
Peggy flicked a tea towel at him and burst out laughing. ‘Get away with you, you old scallywag. There’s nothing wrong with you a good woman couldn’t cure. Sort out your room before you go up to the Memorial. You’ve got plenty of time.’