by Pam Weaver
Mr Brown shrugged. ‘No idea, lad. Perhaps they thought you’d be better off.’
‘Better off?’ Jim gasped.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Brown, looking up at him. ‘I thought you knew.’
‘Did you ever hear a name?’
‘I can’t say I did.’
Jim stared ahead. ‘Why on earth didn’t the council let me be adopted, or something? I could have had a proper home. It must have cost the ratepayers a fortune to keep me there.’
‘Didn’t cost the council a penny,’ said Mr Brown. ‘The fees came every month. Regular as clockwork.’
CHAPTER 9
‘Ruby darling, is everything all right between you and Jim?’
Rachel was in the garden putting Alma in her pram, when Bea caught Ruby by the arm. She had just brought their cups out into the kitchen to wash up.
Ruby swallowed hard. She and her mother had a good relationship and they had been through some difficult times together. When Nelson, the man she had thought was her father, died, Ruby realized just how difficult it had been for her mother, trapped for years in a loveless marriage. It was even more humbling to realize that Bea had put up with it for the sake of her brother and herself. Whereas Ruby knew she still loved Jim, or at least she thought she did, her own marriage was being far from easy.
Just one look at her mother’s sympathetic expression was enough for it all to come tumbling out: the black moods; the constant battle to help Jim; his fight against the crippling pain; the resentment her husband felt because he blamed her for the accident; and the pressure of having to keep up appearances for the sake of the guests. Bea held Ruby close and smoothed her hair gently, as her daughter leaned on her shoulder. She listened without interrupting, then they cried together. Although they heard someone come to the kitchen door, nobody disturbed them. Eventually Ruby blew her nose and sat up straight.
‘I hardly know what to say,’ Bea confessed, ‘but I promise to support you in whatever decision you make.’
‘I can’t leave him, Mum,’ said Ruby, ‘and I can’t chuck him out, either.’
‘Then let me give you a hand from time to time,’ said Bea. ‘We’ll make a pact that you get a day off every now and then, or at least some time to yourself.’
Ruby nodded. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t think of it before,’ said Bea. ‘You must have been struggling to cope for ages.’
That hadn’t occurred to Ruby, either. It was probably the relentless, unchanging routine that had got her down. She hadn’t the courage even to mention the lack of sex. It felt too awkward bringing up such a subject in front of her mother, but after she’d talked about everything else, Ruby felt a bit better. She wasn’t angry with Jim any more. She told herself that, from now on, she had to look at things from his point of view. Under the circumstances, it must have been very difficult for the poor man to watch her dancing with Bob Knight.
‘Ruby,’ Rachel said cautiously, ‘I know you’re having a busy time at the guest house, but is it still all right for you to take some more Jewish people?’
It was late afternoon when Rachel pulled Ruby aside in Bea’s garden. Alma was still in her pram sleeping soundly, and Bea had gone indoors to answer the telephone. Ruby made a shrewd guess that at any minute her mother would be breaking up the conversation that her father and her brother were enjoying in the greenhouse. No doubt that call was from a patient who was in trouble, somewhere in the town.
Ruby and Rachel had walked across the lawn and were sitting in the summerhouse. It wasn’t yet warm enough to spend a lot of time outside, but with a cardigan around her shoulders to ward off the freshness in the air, it was quite pleasant. If Rachel had heard Ruby crying in the kitchen with Bea, she made no reference to it.
‘When are they coming?’ Ruby asked.
‘They dock at Southampton in five days’ time,’ said Rachel. ‘Several members of the Deborah Committee will travel down to meet them and then we’ll disperse them around the country.’
‘Is it really getting that bad over there?’ asked Ruby. She thought back to the time when Albrecht and Franz had stayed with them. They had spoken only in glowing terms about Hitler’s Germany.
‘Really bad,’ said Rachel. ‘Jewish people have been stripped of their citizenship. They’re not allowed to go on the buses and trams now, and they can’t even sit on a park bench.’
‘You’re joking!’ cried Ruby.
‘We should have guessed the way things would turn out, when Hitler refused to shake Jesse Owens’s hand at the Olympic Games last year,’ said Rachel.
‘That was because he was black,’ Ruby remarked.
‘Blacks, Jews . . . ’ said Rachel. ‘Hitler hates them all. God knows where it will all end.’
Ruby gave an involuntary shiver.
‘I’m worried about you,’ Rachel said suddenly.
Ruby frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’ said Rachel. ‘Between you and Jim. You’re not as perky as you used to be.’
‘Things are bound to be different now,’ said Ruby. ‘Since Jim’s accident . . .’ her voice trailed off. ‘And it doesn’t help when Percy keeps on and on at him.’
‘Percy just wants to help,’ said Rachel. ‘It can’t be good for Jim to be stuck indoors all the time. I dread to think how you’ll cope when babies come along.’
Ruby laughed sardonically. ‘There’s little chance of that!’ As soon as she’d blurted it out, she regretted it. Consumed with embarrassment, she felt her cheeks flame.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
Ruby looked away, tears pricking her eyes.
‘Oh, Ruby,’ said Rachel. ‘You mean that you and Jim . . . ? What – never? But you’re so young.’
With that, Ruby burst into tears again. Damn, damn, damn; she hadn’t meant to do that. Her sister-in-law moved into the chair beside her and put her arm round her shoulders. ‘Don’t tell anyone, will you?’ Ruby said brokenly. ‘I couldn’t bear it if the rest of the family knew. Rachel, Jim doesn’t want me any more.’
‘I can’t believe that,’ she replied.
Ruby looked stricken. ‘I don’t want Mum to know. Promise me you won’t tell her.’
Rachel glanced towards the house. ‘Perhaps,’ she began cautiously, ‘Jim just needs a little reminder of how it once was.’
Ruby blew her nose noisily.
‘Tell you what,’ Rachel said decisively. ‘When I come for your refugees, we’ll take the afternoon off. We’ll go shopping in Brighton and have our hair done, and then we’ll buy some lingerie and some perfume.’
Ruby managed a weak smile. ‘Do you really think that’ll make any difference?’
‘Trust me,’ said Rachel. ‘No man can resist a pretty girl dressed in silk.’
They were interrupted by Bea calling her husband. ‘Rex darling, that was Mrs Vane on the telephone. Her daughter’s waters have broken, and the midwife said to call you.’
At the other end of the garden Rex Quinn stood up wearily. Left on his own, Percy headed towards the summerhouse. Rachel squeezed Ruby’s arm conspiratorially. ‘Don’t worry, darling. We’ll soon have that man of yours eating out of your hand.’
Jim was still brooding about his parents. The fact that he had a mother and a father, and that they had paid to keep him in the orphanage, was difficult to deal with. He wondered if he’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Perhaps his mother wasn’t married to his father. Maybe that was why they’d gone abroad. But that didn’t explain why they had never given him the chance to grow up in some other family.
If they didn’t want to let him go, why didn’t they keep in touch? His parents had missed all the milestones of his life: when he was fifteen and leaving school; when he was twenty-one and came of age; when he married Ruby . . . They could have been there – been a part of it. Had his father put his mother up to it? Or was it as he feared: his mother had been unfaithful? Jim sighed. If Ruby was unfait
hful, what would he do with her child? He didn’t know, but he was certain he would never put him or her in a home, to languish and wonder. He knew how that felt. It was unfair and painful. He’d been unwanted and unloved. He swallowed hard and, even though he was a grown man, it still hurt. God, it hurt.
The first Jewish refugees, Rivka and Elisheva, arrived at Sea View at the end of the month. Rachel drove them to the guest house from Southampton, where their ship had docked. Both girls were well dressed and well educated. Rivka seemed about seventeen, with shoulder-length black hair and large, sad eyes. She looked very tired and was clearly frightened. Elisheva was older, perhaps twenty-three or twenty-five, and she wore her dark hair tied back in a chignon. Her well-manicured hands told Ruby that she was middle-class and unused to manual work. They each carried one small suitcase.
Ruby showed them to the room they would be sharing and left them to unpack. Back downstairs, she made her sister-in-law a cup of tea. As she did so, Rachel explained that both girls had an affidavit of support, but they were only allowed to stay in the country if they worked as domestic servants.
‘Quite frankly,’ said Rachel, ‘neither of these girls has done a day’s work in their lives. I know it’s not part of our agreement, but do you think you could give them a crash course on running a home?’
Ruby gasped. ‘You mean ask them to work for me? But I thought they were to be my guests.’
‘In one sense they are,’ said Rachel, ‘but they have to move on. They cannot stay here indefinitely. They both understand that Mrs Whichelow has found a placement for one girl working in Pulborough, and we are actively looking for another position for the other.’
‘I feel a bit embarrassed,’ Ruby confided.
‘Don’t be,’ Rachel said firmly. ‘This is the only way to save their lives.’
Ruby gave her a quizzical smile.
‘Honestly, darling,’ Rachel insisted, ‘I’m not being melodramatic. Even when I was over there, people were disappearing. Hitler has already begun his grand plan, and that doesn’t include Jews, Gypsies or the disabled. I get the feeling it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.’
‘Judging by the look of them,’ said Ruby, raising her eyes to the ceiling, ‘the pair of them need a good long rest first.’
‘Perhaps for a day or two,’ Rachel conceded, ‘but then we must crack on. We need to get them into placements as quickly as possible. We’ve a shortage of people willing to sponsor the girls, and there are so many who need our help.’ She sounded frantic with worry.
Ruby rubbed her arm comfortingly. ‘You mustn’t take the troubles of the whole world on your shoulders,’ she said gently.
‘I know,’ said Rachel, relaxing a little.
‘How long have I got?’ asked Ruby. ‘To train them to be domestic servants?’
‘A week,’ said Rachel.
‘A week!’
‘Ten days at the most,’ continued Rachel. ‘Their visas are only valid if they are working, remember?’
Ruby was beginning to understand the urgency, and how much this was going to interfere with normal life. Most likely the girls had little English, and yet she’d have to help them get to grips with the English way of life, and cooking English food, which would most likely be totally alien to them. Ruby had always thought it would be helpful to have help in the guest house, but if the girls had to be watched all the time, it was probably going to make more work than it saved! ‘Oh, Rachel, it’s awful,’ she sighed.
Rachel’s eyes grew wider. ‘You mean you can’t do it?’ she said.
‘No, no,’ cried Ruby. ‘I mean for those poor girls.’
‘Listen,’ said Rachel, moving closer and speaking confidentially. ‘You and I must put aside all sentimentality. We must be businesslike. There’s no future for them in Germany. At the moment this is the best option they have. It’s either this or go back to Hitler.’
Ruby nodded. ‘I’ll do my best.’
Rachel patted her arm. ‘The fact that you speak German will be useful.’
‘It’ll be good practice for me too,’ said Ruby with a smile.
‘But,’ Rachel cautioned, ‘get them to speak English as much as possible.’
‘By the time they leave here,’ Ruby quipped, ‘you’ll be able to get them a job with the BBC.’
CHAPTER 10
The Heene branch of the Townswomen’s Guild was taking off. Bea and the rest of the committee had organized a programme for the rest of the year. At each meeting there would be a speaker, followed by cups of tea and home-made cakes. The ladies were so eager to show off their culinary skills that there was no shortage of offers to go on the rota. It amazed her how these women – strangers just a few weeks ago – had slotted in and found their place. Mrs Raymond was good at organizing the kitchen. Miss Taylor was the first at the sink to do the washing up and, as soon as the Parish Room was opened, Mrs Crockerton and Miss Horton were busy getting the chairs out and arranging the room; and Mrs Wilmot was a diamond when it came to organization and getting a speaker. The only woman who did nothing was Effie Rhodes.
Bea had been appointed treasurer. She sat at the table just inside the door and checked everybody in. Each lady paid a subscription of fifteen shillings a year, which could be paid as a lump sum or at the slightly higher cost of one and sixpence per meeting. In the beginning they had decided on one shilling and sixpence a meeting, but that was deemed unnecessary because of the high number of members. One and thruppence a meeting was more than adequate to cover the cost of the hall, all the running costs and the fees commanded by their speakers. The members who were paying annually were allowed to miss meetings, but all the others had to pay, whether they attended or not.
Effie obviously relished being the chairman. She always dressed well, but she excelled herself for the Guild meetings. Today she wore a pale-blue dress with a large bow at the neck and long sleeves and an ankle-length pleated skirt. The brim of her jaunty hat was pulled over her left ear and she wore dark-blue suede court shoes.
She sat in the middle of the top table, complete with gavel, and brought the meeting to order. Today they were having a guest speaker who was giving a talk on foraging food from the hedgerows. Bea wondered vaguely how someone could fill forty-five minutes on such a subject but, according to Mrs Wilmot, the woman’s talk to the WI in Goring had brought a standing ovation.
As it turned out, the speaker was very interesting, although Bea wasn’t too sure that Rex would appreciate having nettle soup or baked hedgehog on his table. He might, however, be tempted by sloe gin and blackberry-and-apple crumble. As the meeting broke up, Effie came over to the treasurer’s table.
‘How are our finances, Bea dear?’
‘Good,’ said Bea, ‘but they could be better. I was wondering if we could do a raffle each time.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Effie. ‘By the way, how is that daughter of yours? Still looking after German schoolboys?’
‘She’s taking in refugees now,’ said Bea proudly.
Effie arched her eyebrows. ‘Refugees?’
‘Some girls who have been brought over by the Deborah Committee,’ replied Bea. ‘Things are really bad . . .’
Effie was distracted as she caught sight of another woman that she wanted to talk to. ‘Oh, I simply must catch Lady Paget,’ she said, hurrying away. ‘Talk to you later, dear.’
Things had been slightly awkward at the first committee meeting when Bea and Freda Fosdyke had been put together. Bea remembered the harsh way Mrs Fosdyke had treated Ruby while she worked at Warnes Hotel, and how rude she had been when Ruby had returned as a guest with her father. She felt sure that some of it stemmed from vindictiveness. When Bea had got herself pregnant by Nelson Bateman, he and Freda had been stepping out together and planned to marry. It was common knowledge that Freda was hopelessly in love with him, and when Bea and Nelson had to get married, it broke her heart.
The irony was that Bea’s shotgun wedding was never a happy one. P
erhaps if Nelson had been able to marry Freda, things would have been very different. When they broke up for tea, Bea made a valiant attempt to paper over the cracks. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages, Freda. What is it you’re doing now?’
‘We’re supposed to call each other by our surnames, Mrs Quinn,’ said Freda haughtily.
‘Yes,’ said Bea faintly, ‘I’m sorry. I just thought that as we’ve known each other for so long . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘I’m very well, thank you,’ said Freda, not really giving an inch. ‘I work for Sir Hubert Temple now. At the moment he’s renting a beautiful home in Rustington.’
‘Oh?’ said Bea. ‘Someone told me he lived in Goring.’
Freda shook her head. ‘Marama suits him better.’
‘You’ve come a long way,’ said Bea. ‘Isn’t there a branch of the Townswomen’s Guild in Rustington?’
Freda’s face coloured.
‘Or perhaps the WI?’ suggested Bea.
‘I prefer to come here,’ said Freda.
‘It sounds like you’ve got a very responsible job,’ replied Bea.
‘He only employs the best,’ said Freda. ‘As you well know, I had a very responsible position at Warnes.’
The barb in her comment didn’t go unnoticed.
‘Freda.’ Bea began again. ‘Mrs Fosdyke, all that was a very long time ago, and I am truly sorry for all the pain I caused, but it takes two to tango, you know. Nelson is gone now and we are both older and wiser. Can we not start again?’
Freda Fosdyke gave her a long stare. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded, ‘but only for the sake of the Guild.’
‘Just as you please,’ said Bea, doing her best to hide her disappointment.
At the top table, Effie Rhodes banged the gavel. ‘Ladies,’ she said, ‘I have just had a wonderful idea. I think we should have a raffle at each meeting. It will raise much-needed funds and we can also do our bit for a charitable cause.’
There was a collective buzz of excited chatter.
‘I would ask each of you then,’ Effie went on, ‘to bring something for the raffle, if you can. And as Mrs Wilmot has graciously agreed to postpone the talk with Mrs Lambourne on American quilt-making, at the next meeting we shall be having Mrs Forbes as our speaker. Mrs Forbes happens to be a dear friend of mine, who collects handkerchiefs. She has been doing so for more than twenty years and has a collection of more than five hundred.’