by Nancy Revell
‘Sounds like it was just Southwick,’ Dorothy said, looking to Angie to elaborate.
‘That’s what I heard,’ Angie agreed. She was also thinking that Gloria looked shattered even though they hadn’t even started their day’s work yet.
‘Some of my da’s family are from Southwick – the Marley Potts estate. They weren’t hurt, but their friends who lived on Shakespeare Street, well, let’s just say they haven’t got a home now … Four houses,’ she continued, ‘totally demolished. Sixteen damaged beyond repair. And the gas and water mains. Broken.’
Martha let out a heavy sigh. No one said anything.
‘Come on then,’ Rosie said, geeing everyone up. ‘Let’s get on with building Brutus, eh? We’re making good progress. Let’s keep the momentum going.’
At ten o’clock, Rosie declared a tea break. No one needed telling twice and soon they were all huddled round their makeshift metal fire. The seagulls were screeching above them. Today they seemed particularly loquacious; their shrill cries could even be heard above the noise of the workers and their machinery.
‘Something’s got their goat,’ Dorothy said, as her neck craned to look at the large white and grey flecked birds with their Pinocchio-yellow beaks as they swooped down around them.
As Dorothy brought her eyes back to ground level she spotted a small group of smartly dressed men coming out of the main admin building.
‘What’re the suits doing here?’ she wondered aloud, before letting out an audible gasp as she saw a man and a woman step out of the doorway.
It was Jack and Miriam.
‘Oh, no,’ she said.
The other women welders automatically turned to see what had given Dorothy such a shock. There was a collective intake of breath.
‘It’s Jack,’ Martha said bluntly.
‘And Miriam,’ Rosie added.
The women’s eyes swivelled from Jack and Miriam back round to Gloria.
No one said anything. No one knew what to say. Gloria went to walk away, but Rosie grabbed her by the arm.
‘Stay,’ she said to her quietly. She didn’t want them to wonder why Gloria had suddenly scarpered, especially if the young doctor who had been so nice to Gloria had said anything about her impromptu visit.
‘Bloody Nora,’ Angie said, her eyes fixed on the small group, ‘they’re coming over here.’
‘Don’t stare, Ange,’ Dorothy told her friend, as she looked across at Gloria, who had the dazzled look of a rabbit caught in the beam of a car’s headlights.
‘And here we have the yard’s very special group of women welders …’ Harold’s voice boomed out as they approached ‘… who, I have to say, are doing a grand job here. I think they’ve surprised everyone.’
Rosie immediately stood forward and went to shake Jack’s hand.
‘Hello, Jack,’ she said, squeezing his hand firmly and looking straight into his eyes. ‘It’s great to have you back.’
Jack smiled back at her, but there was not one iota of recognition on his face.
‘Jack …’ Miriam stepped forward to stand by her husband’s side, ‘… has been having a few problems with his memory since he came back to us.’ She looked at the women’s expectant faces, but made a point of completely ignoring Gloria.
‘So, we’re giving him a tour of his workplace,’ Miriam explained. ‘Hopefully, he’ll be back at work soon – and back to normal.’
This was the first time Polly, Dorothy, Angie and Martha had met Miriam. They had spotted her in the past from afar – once at a laying of the keel ceremony, and very occasionally when she popped in to the main offices, but this was the nearest they had physically ever got to her. They knew she wasn’t one to mix with the hoi polloi. And if they hadn’t gathered already, from looking at her now and hearing her tone of voice, they’d have no doubt Helen was her exact replica – only younger.
Rosie moved to Jack’s other side so that she was standing by him, facing the women. As she did so the smile vanished from Miriam’s face.
‘Well, Jack,’ Rosie said, ‘it’ll be great to have you back. But in the meantime let me reintroduce you to my squad … This is Dorothy,’ she said, stretching her arm out towards an unusually dumbstruck Dorothy. ‘She’s our best – and fastest – welder. And this is Angie, who used to work the cranes … and Martha who has a work output of twice the average man …’ Martha’s chest puffed out with pride. ‘And Polly,’ she said, looking back at Jack, ‘… who you might recall is engaged to be married to Tommy Watts, Arthur’s grandson?’ Rosie paused, but on seeing Jack’s blank look, continued. ‘And last, but not least … this is Gloria.’
There was a moment’s silence as Gloria looked at Jack. Her heart was in her mouth. Would Jack remember her from the hospital? Her mind raced.
How would she explain herself if he mentioned she had been in to visit him?
Jack looked serious for a moment, before breaking into an apologetic smile.
‘I’m so sorry, I don’t remember you all. But I’m telling this brain of mine to get itself into gear and to start working properly. Pronto.’ His words were spoken with a genuine smile.
It was so like Jack, Gloria thought as she desperately fought back the urge to grab him and hold him in her arms.
‘Well, that’s quite the “re-introduction”, Miss Thornton. I’m sure Mr Crawford will be seeing you all about soon.’ As Miriam spoke she cast Rosie a look of reproof, knowing she was well aware that calling her husband by his Christian name was a pet hate of hers. She did think, though, that the women didn’t seem all that surprised by Jack’s memory loss. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said they already knew.
As Miriam took Jack’s arm and guided him away from the welders’ area and over to the platers’ shed, Polly sidled up to Gloria and asked, ‘Are you all right?’
Gloria nodded, but her lip was trembling and they could all see she was struggling to keep her emotions in check. Dorothy went over to her and gently squeezed her arm.
‘Don’t be nice to me, Dor,’ Gloria whispered, ‘otherwise I’ll be a total mess.’ But Dorothy ignored her friend’s command and gave her a quick cuddle.
As Gloria and the women switched on their machines, they didn’t see Jack turn away for a few moments from Miriam and her entourage.
Nor did they notice, as he stood and stared at them all, the slightly perplexed look on his face.
As Jack sat down for his evening meal with his wife and daughter in the dining room of their beautiful end-of-terrace house that had been built at the turn of the century for one of the town’s shipyard owners, his mind kept running over the events of the day, and, in particular, the conducted tour of Thompson’s.
It had felt good walking around the yard, surrounded by the clashing and banging of machinery, the gruff voices of the men trying to make themselves heard above the din, and the incessant squawking of the hungry, low-flying seagulls. It was the first time he had felt happy – and at home – since he had woken from his coma. Everything had felt strangely familiar, but at the same time he couldn’t remember having been there before. It just didn’t make sense. It was like having a word on the tip of your tongue and not being able to recall it.
He had listened to Miriam and the yard’s managers as they told him how he had gone over to America to join the yard’s owner, Cyril Thompson, and a few other bigwigs as part of the British Shipbuilding Mission that had been set up by Churchill. The ships the Yanks were building were based on the designs of the SS Empire Liberty. The difference between the two was that the British Liberty ships were all-riveted, and coal-fired, built piecemeal from the keel up. The Yanks were keeping the same simplified hull design, but were constructing prefabricated, all-welded, oil-fired ships with two deckhouses instead of four. The reason being that it would speed up production. At least then there would be ships available to replace the crippling numbers being lost to the German U-boats.
Jack had no recollection of his trip to America, but he seemed to have an innate understa
nding of what they had talked about. Dr Parker at the hospital had explained to him that often a patient in his condition could still remember old habits – and perform everyday functions – but could not remember people, or past events. Which would explain why he could remember the workings of the yard, and the intricacies of how ships were built, but not any of his family or friends.
The doctor had said the brain was ‘a complex organ’ about which the medical profession still knew very little, especially when it came to understanding ‘the effects of trauma on the brain’. He had told him that what was remembered – and what was forgotten – could be somewhat random, depending on what part of the brain had been damaged.
‘More peas, darling?’ Miriam’s almost melodic voice spoke over his thoughts.
Jack put his hand up to show he’d had enough and as he looked back at his wife’s perfectly made-up face, he wished he could remember her from before he had gone away.
But there was nothing.
He could see why he had married her. She was a stunning woman, who clearly looked after herself. Yet for some reason he didn’t feel attracted to her. But perhaps this was just another side effect of his amnesia? Jack finished his food and sat back in his chair and yawned.
‘Dad, you look shattered,’ Helen said, her voice full of genuine concern. ‘Remember what the doctors told you? You’re going to feel very tired to start with and should have plenty of rest. To quote the very nice Dr Parker, “Take life at an easy pace to start with – it’ll take a while to adjust”.’
Jack looked at his daughter and although he had no real recollection of her, there was that ‘almost there’ feel – as if he was just on the verge of knowing her.
‘Doesn’t he, Mum?’ Helen persisted. ‘I think he should rest now. He’s had such a busy day.’
Jack smiled at Helen. He must have done something right as a father, as the girl clearly loved and cared deeply for him. The doctor had told him she’d hardly left his side when he was in the coma.
‘Yes, Helen’s right, Jack. I think you need to rest,’ Miriam said, smiling across the table at her husband.
‘Come on, let’s go upstairs,’ she said. She pushed back the dining room chair and made her way round the oval table to put her hand gently on Jack’s shoulder. He put his hand on top of hers and looked up to her. This woman was so kind and considerate. And lovely-looking. So, why didn’t he feel anything for her? Had he forgotten how to love, on top of everything else?
When they climbed the stairs to the first floor Jack automatically started heading for the spare bedroom at the back of the house.
‘Darling,’ Miriam gently coaxed Jack away from the small back room. ‘I can’t understand why you keep veering off to the spare bedroom. You’ve always hated sleeping on your own.’
‘Sorry,’ Jack said, confused.
‘We’ve always shared the same bed. Always,’ Miriam said, leading him into the large marital bedroom at the front of the house that overlooked the corner of Roker Park. From here the sea was just about visible through the leafless trees.
‘We’ve barely spent a night apart in all the years we’ve been married.’
Helen’s mouth dropped open in disbelief as she earwigged on her mother and father’s conversation as she stood quietly in the large mosaic hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Her mother was lying through her teeth. Helen had never heard so much codswallop in her entire life. She couldn’t even remember the last time her mother and father had so much as held hands – never mind shared a bed. For years now her father had slept in the spare room, which in her younger days Helen had thought was normal – that this was what all mothers and fathers did. But, of course, as she had got older, she’d realised that, although not exactly unheard of, this was not the norm. Now she was nineteen, and far from innocent of the ways of the world, she was pretty sure her parents’ marriage had been dead in the water for a very long time. Passion certainly no longer played a part in it.
As she heard her mother shut the bedroom door, Helen tiptoed in her bare feet down the cold tiled hallway, through to the breakfast room, already set for the morning, and into the warmth of the kitchen where the cook was up to her arms in pots and pans.
‘We’re all done in the dining room now, Mrs Westley,’ she said. Helen never thought to tell the cook that the food had been nice, or to thank her for her trouble. Instead she pinched a cheese scone from the parlour and headed back out of the kitchen. Her departure was followed by the sound of Mrs Westley tutting loudly, and saying, ‘Mrs Crawford won’t like it.’
Helen knew the cook was right. Her mother was always telling her to watch what she ate as she needed to keep her figure.
As she trailed crumbs on the floor and headed up the stairs to her own bedroom on the second floor, Helen really did have to hand it to her mother – when she wanted something, boy, did she make damn sure she got it.
Jack watched his wife as she sat at her dressing table in front of her vanity mirror and rubbed a variety of creams and potions on to her face, neck and hands. She was humming a song he didn’t recognise, but it sounded light and happy. He really was a lucky man to have all this – a lovely wife and daughter, a great job, and to be so wealthy. The house they lived in was more like a mansion than an end-of-terrace. You could get lost in it. Miriam had sat him down the other night with some old photographs and told him how they had lived here for the past twenty years. She’d given him a short summary of his life and how he had worked his way up from being a young apprentice to yard manager – one of the top, and most important, positions in the shipyard.
Miriam had told him, with tears in her eyes, ‘Darling, I wish you could remember just how young and in love we were. Nothing could keep us apart. We were inseparable. Even if Father had threatened to disinherit me, I wouldn’t have given two jots.’ Then she had cuddled up to him on the sofa and chuckled as she had recalled, ‘I used to say we were like Romeo and Juliet, because we both vowed that nothing would stop us being together.’
Jack had held his wife in his arms, but their physical closeness felt so alien. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but it had seemed in some way unnatural. Why did he feel this way? This was his wife. The love of his life. And yet he felt awkward just holding her.
Lying now in the comfort of the soft double bed that had been warmed with hot-water bottles, and seemed to envelop him, he started to drift off. As Miriam continued humming her tune, screwing the lids back on to her small round jars, Jack struggled to keep his eyes open. It had been more than three weeks since he had woken from his coma but still every time he went to sleep he was hit by a terrible anxiety that he would not wake up again.
Tonight, though, he was too tired to care, and, besides, there was something else troubling him. Something he couldn’t work out. Something he felt he should keep to himself. At least for the time being.
When he’d been introduced to the women welders at the yard he had recognised the woman called Gloria – not from his life ‘before’, but from the hospital. He had been about to say that he remembered her coming to see him a few days after he had woken up, but a voice inside his head told him to hang fire and not to mention it. Throughout the day he had kept thinking about the woman. Why hadn’t she said anything? When they were introduced in the yard she had acted like she didn’t know him. Yet she had come to see him at the Royal? It just didn’t make sense. You wouldn’t visit someone in hospital if you didn’t know or care about them.
He had glanced at Miriam, but she hadn’t even looked at this Gloria, never mind acknowledged her. She clearly didn’t know her, or she would have said something, surely?
As Jack fell asleep he forced himself to recall the woman welder’s face. She had a nice-looking face, although she looked tired, which wasn’t surprising considering the kind of work she was doing. But he thought he’d seen a sadness in her eyes.
The more he thought about her, the more she intrigued him, and as sleep finally overpowered him, he took th
e strangely comforting vision of this woman welder with him.
‘Jack,’ Miriam whispered across the bedroom, ‘are you asleep?’
There was a short silence before the air was filled with the sound of Jack’s snoring, which Miriam knew would grow in volume the deeper he fell into sleep. She had never realised he was such a loud snorer. She had never been able to hear him before in the back room – sometimes she hadn’t even known if he was there.
Happy that her husband was now fast asleep, Miriam swivelled back to face her three-way vanity mirror and leant down to slide open the bottom drawer of her French dresser. Rummaging through some underwear and silk stockings she pulled out a quarter-bottle of Gordon’s gin. She poured a good measure into the glass tumbler she always kept next to her hairbrush and creams.
Her hands trembled ever so slightly as she raised the glass to her lips and took a large gulp.
God, I needed that, Miriam said to herself. She had not allowed herself to have a drink until Jack was asleep. She didn’t want him to have any reminders of their past life together, and her gin drinking was very much a part of that former life – and one that had led to more than a few alcohol-fuelled arguments.
As she sat back now, relishing the feel of the gin as it started to do its work, Miriam knew that her daily tipples had become her friend – her comfort – and were now something she could not do without. Not that she wanted to, anyway. She enjoyed a drink, but at the moment she wanted Jack to see her as nigh on perfect. A wife he would thank his lucky stars he had woken up to.
Miriam pulled her long silk nightgown around her and tied the belt tight. As she took another sip, she grimaced a little. She needed some ice and a little tonic water. She stood up and looked at Jack sleeping peacefully in their bed. A bed he had not graced with his presence for so many years she had lost count.
Carefully opening her bedroom door, she slipped out on to the wide landing and made her way quietly down to the kitchen. The place was quiet as Mrs Westley had cleared up and gone home and Miriam felt herself relax for the first time all day.