The Girl on the Beach

by Mary Nichols

  ‘No, she’s alive but badly injured. We transferred her to Windsor for safety.’

  ‘Badly injured,’ Angela repeated. ‘How badly?’

  ‘She has a broken leg, a broken arm, cuts and abrasions, but more troubling is her loss of memory. She doesn’t know who she is.’

  ‘Oh, Rosie.’ Angela was trembling. ‘We must go to her at once.’

  ‘We cannot be sure it is our Rosie,’ Stuart said, as they left in a taxi. ‘Don’t get your hopes up too much.’

  ‘It must be Rosie. The description fits and Matron looked at the photo.’

  ‘It’s not a very good one, you must admit.’

  ‘It was the most recent and her landlady recognised her easily.’

  ‘That’s another thing I can’t understand. All that stuff in the cupboard in her room. Where did she get it and what was she going to do with it?’

  ‘I have no idea. She probably bought it in case things got short. I did myself at the start of the war.’

  ‘True.’

  They fell silent and looked out of the taxi window at the devastation around them. ‘It’s awful,’ she said. ‘If I had known how bad it was, I’d have insisted on her coming home at once.’

  ‘She had to do war work.’

  ‘Yes, but not in London. We’ll have her taken to a hospital near home, then we can see she’s looked after properly.’ Already in her mind the unknown girl was her daughter.

  ‘That might not be easy. I doubt they’d spare an ambulance to go that distance.’

  ‘Then we’ll arrange one ourselves. I don’t care how much it costs. In any case, we’ll need transport to take all her things out of that room too.’

  ‘You are assuming it is Rosie.’

  ‘I pray to God it is.’

  But the patient known as Eve Seaton was not their daughter. They stood and looked down at the young woman and slowly shook their heads, then Angela burst into tears and stumbled out of the ward, followed by her husband.

  Eve Seaton was as disappointed as her visitors. Several people had been to see her, some of whom she liked, some of whom she could not take to at all, none of whom she had recognised, not even the young soldier searching for his wife. He had been a nice man and she had even been sorry in a way that she was not his wife. Mr and Mrs Summers had been her best hope; they had been so sure she was their daughter. She had meant to ask what had happened to her baby, but being strangers, of course they would not know.

  Her memory was as blank as ever. The only things she had been able to call to mind were trivial things that did not help to identify her. She sometimes dreamt up pictures. There was a vast building with shiny corridors which might have been a hospital or an institution; there was a beach with sea lapping over her feet. That one made her feel happy. There were two small children who ran about a garden shrieking. Were they hers? She could not recall their faces. And there was darkness and a terrifying noise which she had been told was probably the bomb that hit the shelter. The more she tried to pull at the memories, the more they refused to solidify. Somewhere, out there beyond the four walls of the hospital, were people she knew, people who knew her. She must have had some family, neighbours, friends, workmates; they could not all have died. If it were not for the plaster of Paris on her leg, she might go out and wander about the streets near the shelter where she had been found and wait for someone to smile in recognition and ask her where she had been hiding herself. She might try that when she was well enough to leave hospital.

  And if no one recognised her, then what? She had no money, no clothes, no ration book, no identity card, nowhere to live. What had she done for a living? What could she do? Was she skilled or unskilled?

  She read newspapers, studying every word, even the advertisements, in the hope that something would jog her memory. In that way she learnt about what was happening in the world about her, or as much as the government were prepared to divulge, and she knew that London was being bombed every night, sometimes more than once, and that everyone was trying to go about their business notwithstanding. She read about great heroism, as well as crime and looting, rationing, new regulations and the black market, but she did not learn who she was. Eve Seaton was an enigma.

  Chapter Five

  Added to Harry’s misery over the loss of Julie and George was the frustration of not yet being assigned to an operational squadron. He was itching to get into action, but all that happened was that he was sent to Cosford where there was a radio training school. As one of the best wireless operators to be turned out in his group he found himself as an instructor, passing on his knowledge to others. It wasn’t what he joined up for, though if Julie had still been alive she would have been pleased to know he wasn’t in the front line. He felt a bit of a fraud because it was the population of London and other cities who were truly in the firing line and they were suffering unbelievable hardship. He was glad his parents had moved. Three-quarters of the workforce at Chalfont’s were women now and, according to his father, doing a great job.

  Sometimes, when he had leave, he went to stay with them. Letchworth was a purpose-built garden city and an oasis of calm. The air-raid siren went off now and again, but the bombers were on their way to or from somewhere else and left them alone. He would spend his leave wandering about the countryside and often found himself thinking, Julie would like to see this, or I must tell Julie about that. And then he would remember and be thrown into gloom. He visited Millie, who was renting a house near his parents, but the sight of Dorothy running about and talking in her own baby language reduced him to tears. He found the companionship of his fellow airmen easier to cope with than the cloying sympathy of his family and often he did not leave the station when on leave.

  He would go to the pictures and for a little while lose himself in the story on the screen, or watch a football match, but more often than not he would join a crowd of his fellows going to the nearest pub, where they drank too much and the jollity was forced.

  Once, when he had a whole week’s leave just before Christmas, he took a train to London and went to Highgate Cemetery to stand over Julie’s grave and contemplate what might have been if there had been no war. There was a stone cross at its head with the names of Julie and George engraved on it, which he had ordered before he returned from leave. The grave was kept tidy and there were flowers in a vase beneath the cross. He was wondering who had put them there when he saw Miss Paterson coming along the path towards him carrying a holly wreath. She seemed thinner and frailer than when he had last seen her and her hair was almost white, reminding him that time never stood still however much you might wish it could.

  ‘Sergeant Walker,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you. I had a day or two’s leave and thought I’d come down. Have you been looking after the grave?’

  ‘Yes, you don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No, I’m grateful.’

  She bent and took away the spent flowers and replaced them with the wreath, picking up the fallen petals and putting all the rubbish in a bag she carried. ‘I’ll leave you, shall I?’

  ‘No, don’t go. Tell me about Julie. Did you see her often?’

  ‘Not all that often, but strangely enough she came to see me that day. The siren went while she was with me. She would not take shelter and insisted on going home because she had left George with a friend. It was a hot day and he had been having fun sitting in a bath of cool water and she didn’t want to drag him out. She didn’t intend to be gone long. In a way I’m glad she got back to be with him in the end, though I don’t suppose it’s any consolation to you.’

  ‘Yes and no. What happened to her friend?’

  ‘I suppose she went home when Julie returned. Foolish of her to risk being out in a raid, but as it happened it probably saved her life.’

  ‘Was she all right? Julie, I mean. Was she well?’

  ‘Yes, but she missed you. She talked a lot about what you would do when you came home. And of course, she d
oted on George. She would risk anything for him.’

  ‘I know.’ He bent and propped the gnome against the wreath.

  ‘I didn’t know whether to leave that there,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Julie loved it. She said he was happy and that was how she was. Whenever she looked at him, she would smile. I hope he’s keeping her smiling now.’

  ‘I am sure he is, but Harry, you must not grieve too long, you know. You have your whole life ahead of you and you mustn’t waste it. Save the good memories and make a new life for yourself.’

  ‘If Herr Hitler lets me.’

  ‘Amen to that.’

  They parted at the cemetery gate and he went back to Harrogate feeling cleansed. The visit had eased his pain a little and brought some sort of finality to Julie’s death, something he had been finding it hard to come to terms with. He stiffened his back and decided, come hell or high water, he would get himself into an operational squadron and do something about winning this war. Let someone else teach the others how to operate wireless sets.

  It was March 1941 before Julie was discharged from the convalescent home she had been sent to after being several weeks in hospital. Now she was fit and well in body if not in mind, but her past remained as elusive as ever. She had accepted her new name, together with a new identity card and ration book, a little money which came out of a government fund for people who had been bombed out, and clothing and toiletries provided by the WVS. She was now, to all intents and purposes, Eve Seaton, aged twenty-two, so they guessed, birthdate and birthplace unknown, next of kin none.

  The first thing she did, even before finding lodgings, was to go to Southwark and wander round the streets to see if anything jogged her memory. The bomb damage was extensive and all she could see were ruined buildings: houses, shops and factories. Even the sight of the railway bridge, now repaired, did nothing to stir anything in her mind but a feeling of terror. Some of the factories were still functioning and she watched the workforce making their way inside. No one gave any sign of recognising her. A few shops, their windows boarded up, were open for business and one grocer even had a notice stuck to the door: ‘Assistant wanted’.

  She went inside. ‘I believe you need an assistant,’ she said to the elderly man who came from behind a blackout curtain at the back of the shop to serve her.

  ‘Yes. My wife’s ill upstairs and I need to look after her. I want someone to take over down here. Have you done this kind of work before?’

  ‘No, but I’ll do anything.’

  ‘Can you add up?’

  Julie was fairly sure she could. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Eve Seaton.’

  ‘Mine’s Doug Green. You don’t come from round here.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The way you talk. More West End than East End.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes. Can you start tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then be here by eight o’clock. I like to catch the factory workers before they clock on. They buy snacks and cigarettes usually.’

  Julie thanked him and left to find lodgings. Very little had escaped the bombing, but there were still buildings standing, some hardly touched, and she wandered about the rest of the day trying to drag her memory back, but the harder she tried the more it eluded her. Mr Green had said she sounded more West End than East End, so perhaps she didn’t come from about here at all. Giving up, she found a room in a lodging house and sat down to contemplate a future which was as unknown to her as her past.

  Working for Mr Green was hard work and the hours long, and by the time she had finished and returned to her lodgings each night, all she wanted to do was eat her evening meal and fall into bed. She was lonely and the only human contact she had was with her landlady and Mr Green and his regular customers, none of whom gave any sign of recognising her. But with a shifting population – people being bombed out and moving away, men away in the forces, children evacuated and new people coming in to work in the factories – it was hardly surprising. She was lonely, so lonely that she wondered if she had been used to having a lot of people around her. A big family perhaps? But if that were so, why had no one come looking for her? Was she in the wrong area altogether?

  When the siren went, she refused to go into a shelter; not for anything would she venture into one of those again. Her landlady gave up trying to persuade her and left her in her room. She would switch off the light and pull back the curtains so that she could lie in bed and see the sky and its criss-cross of searchlights. She would lie there sleepless and listen to the planes coming in, the noise of the guns and the heavy crump of explosions, with her heart beating uncomfortably fast. It only slowed down when the all-clear sounded.

  After one particularly bad raid in early May, she thought the whole city must be on fire. From her window she could see the flames reaching skywards in whichever direction she looked. She could hear the drone of aircraft, wave after wave of them, and occasionally one was caught in a searchlight beam, and then the guns opened fire, but she never saw one brought down. She went to work the following morning to find the grocer’s shop was no more than a pile of rubble.

  ‘What happened to Mr and Mrs Green?’ she asked an ARP warden who was surrounding the ruin with a barrier and a notice: ‘Danger. Keep Out.’

  ‘You a relative?’

  ‘No, I work for Mr Green. Or I did.’

  ‘They are safe. They were in the shelter down the road and were taken to the school. They’ll be looked after there.’

  She thanked him and went to find them. They were sitting on mattresses on the floor of the school hall, shaken but otherwise resigned. She talked to them for a few moments and learnt they would be rehoused and given whatever was necessary to make a new start somewhere away from the bombing. There was nothing she could do for them and she returned to her lodgings. ‘Now what?’ she asked herself, sitting on her bed and surveying the dingy room, made worse because plaster had fallen off the ceiling during the raid, and there was a huge crack in the window.

  Her landlady knocked on her door. ‘Miss Seaton, I heard you come back,’ she said when Julie answered it. ‘I wanted to tell you I’ve had enough of this and I’m moving out. I’m off to stay with my sister in the country and shutting up the house.’

  ‘You want me to move?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  Julie gathered up her few belongings and left. She was homeless and jobless again. Trying to live in the community in the hope it would jog her memory had failed, so she might as well do something entirely different. Since the beginning of April unmarried women between twenty and thirty had been required to register at their nearest employment exchange in order to be directed to war work, but Julie had still been convalescing at the time and was deemed unfit, but nearly two months working for Mr Green and being on her feet all day had strengthened her muscles and she decided to give it a try.

  Allowed to choose between the Women’s Royal Naval Service, Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Land Army or essential factory work, she decided on the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force – why, she did not know, unless it was the blue uniform which she thought looked more feminine than the khaki of the ATS or the navy of the WRNS. She filled in some forms and then returned to find new lodgings and wait for her call-up.

  A week later she was ordered to report to Adastral House on the corner of Kingsway. Here she was directed to a room where she found a crowd of other young women, all waiting to join up. Some were noisy and excited, some, like Julie, quiet and wondering what they had let themselves in for. An RAF sergeant called them to order and herded them like a flock of sheep out to a lorry and told them to climb in the back. Julie, being so small, struggled to get up, but someone put a hand under her bottom and heaved her up where she lay in a heap on the floor. She scrambled up and found a seat on one of the benches. They were taken to Euston Station and boarded a train, bou
nd, so they were told, for Bridgnorth in Shropshire.

  ‘I’m Florrie, Florrie Kilby.’ The girl sitting next to Julie held out her right hand. About Julie’s age, she was taller and broader, with the tanned complexion of someone who was accustomed to spending a lot of time out of doors. She had hazel eyes and an infectious smile.

  Julie shook the hand. ‘I’m Eve Seaton.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  This was what she had been dreading, but she had been rehearsing in her mind a past that they would accept and one she could remember; it would never do to slip up and contradict herself later. ‘Southwark,’ she said, only because that was where she had been rescued from the bombed shelter, and, in a way, where she had been reborn.

  ‘Gosh, that took a pounding in the Blitz, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you bombed?’

  ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t just keep saying yes and so she added, ‘We were bombed out. I was injured and had a long stay in hospital.’

  ‘Poor you. Are you well now?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. I hope so because I don’t want to be rejected on account of being unfit.’

  ‘No, but I expect it might please your folks.’

  ‘All gone. I was the only one who survived.’

  ‘Oh, how awful. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you.’

  ‘You weren’t to know. I just don’t like talking about it.’ Why she didn’t tell her new friend the truth she did not know. Perhaps because she knew everyone would be curious and bombard her with questions she could not answer. Perhaps it was a feeling that there might be something murky in her past she didn’t want anyone to know and she was better off not remembering. Why else would she have shut it all out as if she were ashamed of it? She must make the most of her new life, embrace it, learn to live without a memory further back than 7th September 1940. That, she had decided, would be her birthday.