Sing Them Home

by Pam Weaver

  ‘Welcome to come to what?’ a voice interrupted. It was Betty.

  ‘A party,’ Lillian said. ‘It would be lovely if you’d come along too.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Iris, but surprisingly, they had both turned up on the doorstep. Lillian was delighted. Mr Knight had accepted his invitation too. Perhaps at long last Iris had buried the hatchet and they could all start again. At first, they sat stiffly, only speaking when spoken to, but as Lillian had fussed around them like an old hen, slowly but surely there’d been a noticeable thawing.

  As eating the nibbles drew to a close, Stella gave Pip her birthday presents. There was a pile of equal size for Marion, which Stella put on the sideboard with a promise to do her best to get them to her. Everyone enjoyed seeing Pip open her presents, which although not expensive were well received. In fact, Pip thought each one was terrific.

  ‘Anyone got a party piece?’ Stella asked eventually.

  To everyone’s surprise, Mr Knight asked for a pack of cards. Then he amazed them all with some very clever card tricks.

  ‘How on earth did he do that?’ cried Pip. He had shuffled the pack and separated it into two piles, and then, at the end of a complex method of deciding which ones to get rid of and which to keep, he had ended up with the very card she had chosen. No wonder they all applauded enthusiastically.

  ‘I had no idea he was a magician,’ Lillian whispered confidentially.

  ‘He used to be on stage before the war,’ said Betty.

  ‘He’s really good,’ said Pip as Mr Knight produced the ace of hearts from behind Georgie’s ear. ‘I can’t think why he hides his talent.’

  ‘Probably because of his wife,’ said Betty, clearly enjoying being the fount of all knowledge. The others waited with bated breath. Mr Knight was asking one of Pip’s mums to write her name on the front of the king of diamonds.

  ‘His act was called the Great Fabio,’ Betty told them out of the corner of her mouth. ‘His wife was his glamorous assistant, though in my humble opinion, she isn’t that good-looking.’

  Pip grinned.

  ‘When he came back from Dunkirk with only one eye, she left him for a trumpet player.’ Betty sniffed. ‘He’s very bitter about it. Personally, I don’t blame him.’

  Mr Knight was asking the lady to open her closed handbag. The king of diamonds was inside. Everybody clapped.

  ‘He seems all right now,’ Lillian remarked.

  Stella came to join them.

  ‘By the way, you’ve come undone,’ said Lillian. She pointed to Betty’s brooch. The pin had come undone and was hanging from her blouse collar in a precarious way.

  ‘Silly thing,’ said Betty. ‘I keep meaning to get it fixed.’

  ‘It’s very pretty,’ Stella remarked.

  ‘I got it from the market,’ Betty said.

  ‘One of my other customers had one,’ said Iris. ‘They’re quite popular.’

  ‘They’re not very well made,’ said Betty, refastening the brooch.

  ‘You’ll lose the darned thing one day,’ Iris remarked sniffily, ‘you mark my words.’

  They rounded off the occasion with a sing-song round the piano, and by the time the party was finished, Pip looked all in.

  Everyone was putting on their coats when the doorbell rang.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me this is Carol here at last,’ said Stella as she went to open the door. ‘She never gets the time right.’

  But it wasn’t her teacher friend. It was a telegram boy. As soon as she saw him, Stella put her hand to her mouth and let out a small whimper.

  ‘What is it?’ said Pip.

  ‘Mrs Edmund Bell?’ The boy, a spotty-faced fellow aged about fifteen, held out a buff-coloured envelope. ‘Any reply?’

  ‘You must have made a mistake, love,’ said Pip, taking charge. ‘This is Mrs Bell, but her husband is Mr John Bell.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Stella, interrupting, ‘I am Mrs Edmund Bell. My husband is Edmund John Bell.’ She turned to Pip. ‘He doesn’t like his first name, you see. That’s why he uses his second name all the time.’

  ‘Is there an answer, madam?’ said the boy, holding out the telegram.

  ‘Everyone calls him Johnny in the regiment,’ Stella went on. She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t help it: anything to delay opening the damned thing. ‘Everyone except his mother, of course. She calls him John. Funny that, isn’t it? Calling your child by one name, then using his second name.’ Her laughter was brittle.

  ‘Stella,’ Pip said gently, ‘the telegram boy is waiting.’

  Stella snatched the envelope.

  ‘Shall I wait for an answer, madam?’ the boy said again.

  Stella looked down at the envelope in her trembling hand.

  ‘Shall I open it?’ said Pip.

  Stella nodded. By now, the others had gathered round her in the hallway and Phyllis had pushed her way to the front.

  Pip tore it open. ‘Oh, Stella,’ she gasped as she read the contents. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Phyllis slipped her arm around Stella’s waist and pulled her close. Stella, completely motionless, stared into space. Lillian leaned over Pip’s shoulder, but before she closed the door, she said to the waiting boy, ‘There’s no reply, thank you.’

  ‘Read it,’ said Stella.

  ‘I think you might like to read it on your own,’ Pip began.

  ‘Read it!’

  Pip took in a breath. ‘It is with deep regret . . .’

  But the rest of the sentence was completely lost under the sound of Stella’s howl of unbridled grief as she sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands.

  CHAPTER 23

  Lillian was nervous but excited. She and Nigel had arranged to meet in a pub called the Mulberry Arms in Goring-by-Sea. They had been meeting regularly for the past few months, usually in a pub close, but not too close, to home. Gradually they’d got to know each other and become firm friends. Lillian secretly hoped for more, but for now she had settled for ‘no funny business’.

  In the weeks since Stella had had that telegram, meeting Nigel had been the one thing that kept Lillian going. The Sussex Sisters had come to a grinding halt. Stella had been too ill to carry on. She’d also had to give up her teaching. Some people cruelly remarked that other people suffered just as much and managed to keep going, but Lillian and Pip didn’t see it like that. Stella had kept going all the time Johnny was a prisoner. She’d been brave, and she’d been a great encourager of others, but when she heard that he was missing, believed killed, it was as if the legs had been chopped from under her. Phyllis had taken her to Broadwater for a while, and when now she’d finally returned home, Judith sometimes took her around with her on her WVS assignments. Apart from Pip and Lillian stopping by and one of the mums from the school, a Mrs Dennison, who came calling with cakes every so often, Stella, a shadow of her former self, saw no one.

  The Mulberry Arms was quite posh and a fairly new building. The Peacock Hall Hotel had stood on the site until 1937, when it was rebuilt as a roadhouse. The surroundings seemed a world away from the bombed-out areas of the big cities and the pockmarked streets of Worthing, where German pilots machine-gunned the houses before returning home. However, even the better-off had their share of sadness. The terrors of war had reached the sleepy village of Goring-by-Sea, when the landlord and his wife, Len and Rebecca Knight, had lost their son in the sinking of HMS Hood in 1941.

  When she got off the bus, Nigel was waiting outside the bus shelter.

  ‘I’ve been on tenterhooks that you wouldn’t come,’ he said, grasping her hands eagerly.

  ‘I nearly didn’t,’ she admitted. ‘My mother is expecting me home tonight.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll worry?’

  Lillian shook her head. ‘She knows I’ve been spending time with Stella. With a bit of luck, she’ll think I’ve missed the bus back.’

  Nigel nodded. ‘How is Stella?’

  ‘Getting there,’ said Lillian. ‘S
he’s lost a lot of weight, but perhaps the country life will suit her better.’

  By the time Christmas 1943 had come round, everybody was really worried about Stella. She’d lost nearly two and a half stone, something that even her mother felt she could ill afford to do, so with the coming of the new year, they’d packed her off to Mrs Elkins at the farm in Pulborough.

  Mrs Elkins was such a motherly type that everyone was convinced that some mollycoddling and a bit of home cooking would do the trick. Stella was improving, but it was obvious that it would be a long, slow haul. She had sunk into a deep depression and no one was quite sure how to help. Pip went for the day every now and then, and Lillian was on her way back from there, having spent a couple of days with their friend.

  Lillian shivered.

  ‘Let’s get you in the warm,’ Nigel said, taking her suitcase and leading her towards the entrance.

  The inside of the public house was even more like a hotel. Modern chairs were scattered in semicircles of fours round small, highly polished tables. The Art Deco walls and panelling gave a rather superior feel to the place. At one end of the room, a cheerful fire blazed in the hearth. The bar was lavish rather than seedy, and waiters glided between the customers with their drinks on silver trays. Nigel found them a quiet table hidden discreetly in a corner.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’

  Lillian wasn’t sure what to ask for. She’d only ever been in a posh pub once before, and that was on her wedding day, when she and Gordon had stopped at the Swan on the High Street on their way back from church. Compared with the newness of the Mulberry, it had been a little lacking.

  ‘Do you like sherry?’ Nigel asked. ‘Or port?’

  ‘Sweet sherry will be fine,’ said Lillian, remembering the taste from a Christmas past.

  She watched him as he called the waiter and ordered their drinks. Good-looking, strong and dependable. When he’d promised ‘no funny business’, she’d welcomed the opportunity to get to know him. Her courtship with Gordon had been non-existent, but back then he’d been in a terrible hurry and she’d been curious. Their relationship had only ever been about sex. But by the time she and Nigel had made the final arrangements to meet at the Mulberry, they’d both known ‘no funny business’ would prove to be a promise much too hard to keep.

  Her mind drifted back to the first time they’d met. With their drinks in situ, Nigel, shyly to start with, had told her something about himself. Apparently, he’d been a sickly child. He’d missed out on his schooling, but his mother had arranged for him to have piano lessons.

  ‘That was something I could practise on my own whenever I was well enough,’ he had explained.

  Lillian had been impressed to hear how hard he’d worked. He had reached a high standard and had been a soloist in more than a dozen concerts. When he left school, Nigel had been apprenticed to a sign-writer. He’d enjoyed the work, but when the war came along, he’d tried to enlist but had been refused for all three services because of his weak chest. In the end, he’d applied to the Lancing carriage works.

  ‘I was a bit puzzled when you said you were a sign-writer,’ she’d told him. ‘All the signs were taken down for the duration.’

  ‘The work is a bit dreary,’ he’d admitted, ‘but there are plenty of other signs needed on a train. I write the bit above the communication cord. You know – “Penalty for improper use £20.” Not to mention putting the carriage numbers on the outside.’ He grinned. He was on a roll now. ‘Then there’s “No spitting” and “Ladies only” on at least one carriage per train. Oh, and “Gentlemen, lift the seat”!’

  ‘OK, OK,’ she laughed.

  ‘It’s not earth-shattering stuff, but at least I feel like I’m doing my bit. Your turn now. Tell me something about you.’

  There wasn’t much to tell, but she’d explained how one minute she’d been a schoolgirl and the next minute she’d been swept along by Gordon and got herself into trouble. She’d told him how difficult things had been. ‘He hated the idea of getting married as much as I did,’ she’d said, ‘but we had no choice. The only thing I don’t regret is having Flora.’

  That was the first time that Nigel had looked her in the eye. ‘I’d like to meet her sometime,’ he said softly.

  Lillian had blushed as his finger, wrapped round his pint on the table, touched the back of her hand and her heart raced. She’d moved her hand away, but it was as if he’d left an indelible mark on it. That was probably the moment she’d fallen in love with him.

  Nigel leaned back in his chair. ‘Do you think Stella will ever sing again?’ he asked, bringing Lillian back to the here and now.

  ‘I think so,’ said Lillian. ‘She did mention it a couple of times while I was there.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Nigel.

  ‘But she’s definitely not ready yet,’ Lillian cautioned.

  He toyed with her fingers across the table. ‘Have you ever thought about going solo?’ he asked. He had a furtive look about him, as if he was embarrassed to ask.

  ‘Solo?’ said Lillian. She was slightly shocked, but at the same time she felt a tingle of excitement.

  ‘I’m not suggesting that you desert the Sussex Sisters,’ he said, ‘but until Stella is well again, you could easily do it on your own.’

  ‘Solo,’ she said again.

  He looked down at his beer mat and traced his finger round the edge. ‘I’d be happy to play for you if you like.’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she blurted out. ‘I wouldn’t want to upset anyone. I’ve never really thought about it. What would Pip and Stella think? Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘It would be a shame to waste such a talent,’ he said. ‘Promise me you’ll think about it.’

  She nodded. ‘Funny how . . .’ She paused. Her voice was high and squeaky. She cleared her throat. ‘Funny how,’ she began again in a normal tone of voice, ‘we both enjoy music, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s because we’re soulmates,’ he said huskily. He took her hand in his. ‘There’s still time for you to back out if you’re not ready, my darling.’

  ‘I don’t want to back out, Nigel.’

  She looked up and their eyes locked.

  ‘I have booked us a room,’ he said. ‘First floor, front.’

  She glanced about her nervously.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ he said reassuringly. ‘We are Mr and Mrs Wentworth, so as soon as you’re ready . . .’

  Her hand shook as she sipped the last of her sherry, but she gave him a wobbly smile. Yes, she was ready now, as ready as she’d ever be. She was really going to do this. Stella was right. When you love someone, really, really love them, you want it more than anything else in the world.

  CHAPTER 24

  Betty, Iris and Mr Knight were the first to know that Lillian was thinking about going solo. The atmosphere between them had changed markedly since Lillian had invited them all to Pip’s party. Iris always had a cup of tea waiting for her when she got to the end of her shift, and right from the word go, Mr Knight had never failed to find out where the Sussex Sisters were playing. He made sure that he was in the audience. The three of them always enquired after Stella when Lillian had been to see her, and Betty told Lillian she couldn’t wait for the Sussex Sisters to get back together again.

  ‘Do you think I’d be being disloyal if I went solo?’ Lillian asked. ‘I don’t want to offend Stella and Pip, but it really doesn’t look as if the Sussex Sisters are going anywhere, and I do so enjoy singing.’

  ‘I reckon if you told them, they’d cheer you all the way,’ said Mr Knight. ‘They seem like a lovely bunch of girls.’

  ‘Mr Knight is right,’ said Iris. ‘It would be such a shame if you gave up now.’

  ‘And you’ve got a lovely voice,’ said Betty. ‘Hasn’t she, Ron?’

  Mr Knight nodded vigorously.

  ‘Would you come and see me if it was just me on stage?’

  ‘Like a shot,’ said Mr Knight.


  As Lillian went back to her duties, he smiled after her. ‘That girl has restored my faith in human nature,’ he said.

  Georgie hated being put in the pram, but Pip insisted.

  ‘It’s too far for you to walk all the way to Chaucer Road,’ she told him.

  They were on their way to a birthday party. Georgie hadn’t minded going in the pram when he was younger, but now that he was older, the bigger boys teased him mercilessly and he hated it. ‘Little Georgie Porgie been for walkies in your pram?’ they’d say in a sing-song voice, or else they’d croon, ‘Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop . . .’ and fall about laughing. He would go bright red and ball his fists, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Even though the springs groaned under the combined weight of Georgie and Hazel, once Pip had got the momentum going, it seemed far quicker than having to stop every now and then to wait for tired little legs to catch up with her. She often wondered why, when they had such energy in the garden, children would drag their feet and complain when she was in a hurry to be somewhere.

  Usually, as soon as his mother lifted him up to put him in the pram, Georgie would begin to make a terrible fuss, but today she didn’t seem to notice that he was a willing passenger. Pip had talked about taking out the boards that kept the mattress flat to give them more room for their legs, but to Georgie’s great relief, she’d changed her mind.

  ‘No, I’d better leave them where they are,’ she’d said. ‘I need a flat surface for the plates of food.’

  There was a great pile of food between their legs, and Hazel was holding on to six balloons, each tied with a piece of string. The party was for Sarah Hollick, a little girl who had been coming to Pip’s house since she was three. Now that she had reached the ripe old age of five, she would be going to school after the Easter holidays.

  As they bumped along the pavement, Georgie heard a rolling noise coming from the well of the pram. He held his breath and glanced anxiously at his mother. He knew what it was, and when Hazel put her head on one side as if she was listening, he had to act quickly. Whatever happened, he couldn’t let his mother lift the boards and look underneath. Throwing his head back, he struck up a loud rendition of ‘Ten Green Bottles’, and after a few bars, Hazel joined in.