Stand up to her? Helen’s heart beat faster at the thought. ‘I’m not sure I can,’ she whispered.
‘It’s either that or lose Charlie,’ Dora said. ‘It’s up to you which you think you can bear.’
After a sleepless night of tossing and turning, Helen made up her mind. She had arranged to meet her mother during her afternoon break, after dinner. But late in the morning there had been an emergency on the ward, and Helen had been kept on to help deal with it. She had missed dinner but was still five minutes late as she hurried to the courtyard to meet her mother. Her stomach began to flutter when she saw Constance sitting on the bench under the trees.
She seemed so lost in thought she didn’t notice Helen until she had walked right up to her.
‘Mother?’
Constance looked up. ‘Oh, Helen. There you are.’ She had braced herself for the inevitable telling off for being late, so her mother’s wavering smile caught her completely off balance.
‘I – I’m sorry I’m late,’ she stammered. ‘There was an emergency.’
‘It doesn’t matter. These things happen in a hospital, don’t they?’ her mother dismissed it. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’
Helen shook her head. ‘There wasn’t time.’
‘Then you must have something.’ Constance stood up, picked up her handbag and hooked it over her arm. ‘Come along.’
She led the way out on to the main road, striding purposefully ahead, with Helen trailing behind. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Where would you like to go?’
Helen stared at her, dumbfounded by the question. Her mother never asked her opinion about anything. ‘I – I don’t mind,’ she managed finally.
‘Then I suggest we find somewhere close by since I think it might rain.’ Her mother held her hand out and squinted up at the sky.
Helen looked up into the grubby clouds overhead. This wasn’t right. There was something very strange going on, she could feel it. And it was nothing to do with the weather, either.
As they approached the cafe, Helen realised with panic that it was the same place she and Charlie had been the previous night.
‘Should we go somewhere else?’ she suggested quickly.
Her mother frowned at her. ‘I didn’t think you had any preference?’
‘I – I don’t, but there’s another place on the other side of the park which I’ve heard is very nice,’ she invented hastily.
‘Nonsense, we’re here now.’ Constance was already opening the door. The bell over the door jangled, making Helen jump. She prayed the proprietor wasn’t around. She let out a sigh of relief as the curtains at the back of the cafe parted and a young girl appeared, carrying a tray laden with pots of tea.
As luck would have it, her mother chose exactly the same table in the window where Helen and Charlie had sat the day before. Helen picked up the menu and perused it listlessly, waiting for her mother to order.
The waitress came over, her pad poised. Helen listened as her mother went through her usual tiresome routine, questioning the girl closely about the freshness of the sandwiches and the quality of the tea: ‘Is it Indian? Do you warm the pot first? So many places don’t, and I can always tell, you know.’
Helen tuned out, gazing through the window at the street. Rain had started to spatter down on the pavements, sending people running for cover into doorways and under trees.
She wondered what Charlie was doing now. Had he kept his promise to find a car in which to make their escape? She smiled at the thought of what he was prepared to do to make sure they stayed together. With all the effort he was making, the least she could do was talk to her mother. And if her plan worked, they might not have to leave London at all.
‘Helen?’ Her mother’s sharp voice brought her back to reality. She looked up. Constance and the waitress were looking at her expectantly.
‘What do you want to order? The waitress doesn’t have all day, you know.’
Helen looked back at the menu in a panic. Her mother had never asked her what she wanted before, she’d always chosen her food just as she chose everything else.
‘Just a pot of tea and a toasted teacake, please,’ she said finally.
‘That’s hardly adequate, is it?’ her mother commented disapprovingly, her mouth tightening as the waitress went back to the kitchen with their order. ‘You’ll be fainting later on the ward.’
But she didn’t summon the waitress back, or change Helen’s order. Helen stared at her.
‘Are you all right, Mother?’ she asked worriedly.
‘Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t I be?’ But Constance was fidgety and ill-at-ease as she fiddled with the buttons on her gloves. She didn’t seem quite as sure of herself as usual.
The bell jangled, and Helen felt an icy chill run down her spine when she heard the cheery Italian cockney lilt of Antonio the proprietor’s voice.
‘It’s raining cats and dogs out there,’ he announced to the customers sitting at the tables. ‘You’re in the best place, I reckon.’
Helen didn’t dare lift her head to look at him as he bustled past, his arms full of cardboard boxes. She prayed he wouldn’t see her.
‘Now,’ her mother said. ‘About St Andrew’s.’
Helen felt her palms turn clammy with fear. It was now or never. Panic and nerves made her forget the speech she’d spent all night carefully preparing. Suddenly it felt as if her tongue had swelled up in her mouth, making words impossible.
‘Mother, I’ve been thinking,’ she started to say. But at that moment, Antonio appeared from behind the curtain again. He caught Helen’s eye, and grinned broadly.
‘Hello there,’ he greeted her. ‘Back already, I see. Here, Jenny,’ he called back through the curtain to the waitress. ‘Here’s that girl I was telling you about. The one whose boyfriend proposed last night.’
The deathly silence that followed seemed to suck all the air out of the room. Helen stared down at the wooden table, not daring to meet her mother’s eye.
‘Proposed?’ Constance said coldly.
‘I can explain,’ Helen said, and then realised she couldn’t.
‘I think you’d better.’ Her mother waited expectantly, her face taut with suppressed emotion.
But before she could begin to speak, the bell over the door jangled again and in walked Charlie, leaning heavily on his stick, his hair dripping from the rain.
‘And here’s the fella who proposed!’ Antonio called out in delight from behind the counter. ‘Hurry up, Jenny, you’re missing all the fun here!’
Everyone in the cafe fell silent, watching them, as Charlie made his way over to their table. Helen held her breath.
‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered. ‘How did you know where we were?’
‘I followed you from the hospital.’ He turned to Constance, who was sitting as rigid as a statue opposite them. ‘Hello, Mrs Tremayne. My name is Charlie Denton. I’m pleased to meet you.’
He held out his hand. Mrs Tremayne stared at it with contempt, as if he’d tried to present her with a dead fish.
‘I wish I could say the same about you,’ she said tightly.
Charlie’s hand fell limply back to his side, but he refused to be intimidated. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs Tremayne, but I have something to say to Helen,’ he continued bravely.
‘Can’t it wait?’ she pleaded, glancing nervously around the busy cafe.
‘No, it can’t.’ Charlie took a deep breath. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided I don’t want to marry you.’
‘What?’ Helen and her mother chorused in shock.
‘Jenny!’ Antonio bellowed through the curtain. ‘Put that bread down and get out here now!’
‘I mean, I do want to marry you, one day. But not now. Not like this.’ He turned back to Mrs Tremayne. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ he asked. ‘I can’t stand for very long on this leg of mine.’
Helen’s mother gave a nod and Charlie drew up a chair and lowered himself heav
ily into it. He turned to Helen again. His face was haggard, with purple shadows under his blue eyes. Helen guessed he’d had a sleepless night too. ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ he said. ‘I love you, Helen. Too much to want to run away and elope.’
‘Elope?’ she heard her mother say faintly.
‘When I marry you, I want it to be because we both want to,’ Charlie went on, ‘not because it’s the only way we can be together. And I want all our families to be there, too, to see us make our vows to each other. Even you, Mrs T.’ He smiled at Constance. ‘I want the whole world to see how much I love you. And I want you to finish your training first,’ he added. ‘Because I reckon you’re a wonderful nurse, Helen, and you deserve to do it.’
There was a long silence. Someone sighed on the other side of the cafe. Out of the corner of her eye, Helen could see Antonio wiping away a tear with his grubby apron.
She and Charlie both turned to look at her mother. Mrs Tremayne sat ramrod-straight. Helen saw the icy look in her eyes and realised with a feeling of creeping dread that she was going to put Charlie firmly in his place.
‘We’ve heard a great deal about what you want, young man,’ she said in a clipped voice. ‘Have you considered asking my daughter what she might want?’ She turned to Helen. ‘What do you have to say about this?’
Helen looked from Charlie’s beseeching face to her mother’s stony expression. She could feel him silently urging her on, willing her to speak her mind.
She swallowed the dry lump of fear that clogged her throat. ‘I don’t want to go to Scotland,’ she managed finally. ‘I want to stay at the Nightingale and finish my training.’
She steeled herself to look at her mother, waiting for the thunderclap of rage to crash over her head. Constance’s face remained impassive.
‘Very well,’ she said.
Helen and Charlie looked at each other. ‘Do you really mean it?’ Helen whispered. She was sure it couldn’t be that easy.
‘Of course. Surely you didn’t think I was going to frog march you off to Aberdeen without your agreement, did you?’ Constance looked incredulous. ‘If you would rather stay at the Nightingale, then I will speak to Matron and arrange it. I’m sure she will have something to say about the matter, but no doubt we will come to some sort of understanding.’ Her lips thinned. ‘But I expect you to work very hard during your final year. And if I hear anything to suggest otherwise,’ she sent Charlie a stern look, ‘I will be forced to reconsider.’
‘Yes, Mother.’ Helen could feel happiness bubbling up inside her. She wanted to hug her, but didn’t think Constance would welcome such a public display.
Or perhaps she would. Five minutes ago she would have been certain that her mother was going to send Charlie packing and probably banish Helen to a convent for even daring to think about elopement. But here she was, calmly accepting it all.
Helen reached for Charlie’s hand under the table and held on to it tightly. She couldn’t imagine what might have brought about her mother’s change of heart, but she was grateful for it. The waitress brought over their tray, and set down the tea in front of them. Constance put her hand against the side of the pot, testing it.
‘You haven’t warmed this pot, have you?’ she snapped. ‘I told you, I can always tell. Take it away at once.’
Helen smiled to herself. It was good to see her mother hadn’t changed completely.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
‘THE DRINKS ARE on me!’
Alf Doyle looked around the public bar of the Rose & Crown, feeling like the Pearly King of Bethnal Green. He’d had a big win on the horses, he had money in his pocket and everyone in the pub was his friend.
‘You’re a lucky man, all right Alf,’ Len Pike raised his pint to him. ‘First the gee-gees and then that lovely missus to go home to. I’m telling you, if I had a smashing looking woman like that waiting for me at home, I wouldn’t be wasting my time drinking beer with us ugly mugs!’ He grimaced. ‘As it goes, I have to get sozzled before I can go home and face my old woman!’
Alf laughed, but he wasn’t thinking about Rose. Granted, she was still a nice looking woman, and she looked after him a treat. But she had turned forty, there was grey in her hair and she just didn’t do it for him any more.
Not like Josie . . . He smiled and wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue at the thought of her.
He downed his pint, bade goodbye to his friends and stepped out of the pub into the cool evening air. He weaved his way slowly home past the docks, nipping down the shadowy little alley the locals called Cutthroat Lane. The name didn’t bother him. He often staggered home that way, and he’d never had any trouble. He could take care of himself, anyway. He was a big bloke, and not many men were brave enough to tackle him.
He was trying to make up his mind whether to treat himself to some jellied eels when the fist came out of nowhere, knocking him flat on his back. Alf felt the trickle of blood from his nose as he lay winded on the cobbles, gasping for breath. Suddenly he knew he’d been a fool to flash the cash around the pub. Now his luck had run out.
He groped in his pocket for his wallet, pulled it out and tossed it across towards the shadows.
‘Here’s my money,’ he stammered. ‘Take it. Whatever you want.’
‘I don’t want your money.’
A moment later a figure stepped out of the shadows into the greenish lamplight, and Alf found himself squinting up in confusion at the familiar face towering over him.
‘Hello, Alf,’ said Nick Riley. ‘I’d like a little chat, if you’ve got a minute?’
The news that Alf Doyle had done a runner spread around Griffin Street like wildfire. And it wasn’t long before rumours started to fly. Some people reckoned he had a woman on the Isle of Dogs, others claimed he’d done a bunk up north to escape big gambling debts. The only thing they could agree on was that Alf Doyle had been a quiet one, and that the quiet ones were the worst.
Through it all, Rose Doyle maintained a dignified silence. She went on working every day, taking in mending, cleaning her house and looking after her children, always ready with a kind word and a smile for the neighbours, even though she knew they were gossiping behind her back. But in private Dora could see she was devastated.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she would say over and over again. ‘I thought we were so happy? Why would he just walk out like that?’
Sometimes she would convince herself that something dreadful had happened to him. ‘My Alf wouldn’t just up sticks and leave his family. No one’s seen him at work, either. Something’s happened to him, I know it has. He could be lying murdered somewhere. Or else he’s topped himself.’
‘People don’t pack up their bags if they’re planning to do themselves in, Rose,’ Nanna Winnie pointed out. ‘Face it, girl, none of us knew Alf as well as we thought we did.’
Josie and Dora exchanged looks but said nothing. They couldn’t understand it either, although Dora knew her sister was as grateful as she was for his mysterious disappearance.
‘Do you think he’ll come back?’ Josie asked her fearfully, just after he vanished.
‘I don’t know, Jose. I wish I did.’
‘Why did he go, I wonder?’
Dora shrugged. ‘Maybe he realised what he’d done and decided he couldn’t live with himself?’ Although that didn’t seem very likely from the way he’d treated her.
‘Well, I hope he’s dead,’ Josie said with feeling. ‘I hope he’s lying at the bottom of the Thames.’
‘Shh, don’t let Mum hear you talk like that,’ Dora warned. She felt desperately sorry for her mother. No matter how badly Alf had treated them, she hated to see Rose Doyle suffer. It was so cruel of Alf just to walk out on her.
She felt even worse when she heard the neighbours gossiping.
‘Well, who’d have thought it?’ Lettie Pike could barely contain her glee. ‘Looks like the Doyles have come down in the world. Poor Rose, how’s she going to cope with no man to keep her?’
>
‘Same way you manage, I dare say,’ Nanna Winnie had replied sharply. ‘I don’t see your Len putting himself out to keep you. Why else do you have to go out scrubbing hospital floors?’
The only one who showed her mother any sympathy was June Riley. ‘I know what it’s like to have your husband run off,’ she reminded them. ‘My Reg did the very same thing, remember? Went off without a by-your-leave, he did.’
Dora thought about Reg Riley, disappearing off in the night. It was just like Alf, in a way. Except everyone knew Nick was the one who’d driven him out.
It made her wonder if Nick had had anything to do with Alf’s disappearance. But why would he? It wasn’t as if Alf had done anything to Nick. Not like his bullying father.
But all the same, the idea unsettled her.
‘You don’t know where Alf went, do you?’ she asked him one evening as he sat in the back yard, smoking a cigarette.
He stared back at her, his blue eyes unreadable. ‘Why should I?’
‘No reason.’ She was silly for even thinking it, she decided.
Before he could say any more, Ruby came out into the yard, dressed up to the nines as usual in a dress of emerald green and a matching hat fastened to her blonde curls with pearl-tipped pins.
‘There you are,’ she said, her scarlet-painted lips stretching into a broad smile. Dora watched her sashay over to Nick and thread her arm possessively through his. ‘Have you seen the time? We should be going soon.’
He stubbed out his cigarette and got to his feet. ‘Ready when you are.’
‘Going somewhere nice?’ Dora asked lightly.
‘Nick’s taking me out dancing.’ Ruby couldn’t keep the delighted grin off her face. ‘There’s a new show band on at the Palais.’
Dora looked at him. ‘I didn’t know you liked dancing?’
‘He’s never tried it, have you, Nicky? It’ll be a new experience for you. The first of many, I hope.’ She winked at Dora.
Nick sent her one last look before he followed Ruby out of the back gate. Dora thought she saw a flash of longing in his eyes, but that was probably wishful thinking. She sat down on an upturned bucket and stared up at the sky. Damn you, Alf Doyle, she cursed silently. He might have been out of her life, but he would never be out of her head.
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