Sing Them Home

by Pam Weaver

  Lillian still saw Nigel, of course, but these days their unions were hasty and often down some dimly lit alleyway or out in the country, and the ever-present threat of being caught was beginning to take its toll.

  ‘Run away with me.’

  ‘I can’t. You know I can’t. I can’t leave Flora.’

  ‘Then bring her with us.’

  ‘And who’s going to look after her when I’m on stage? Anyway, if Gordon comes home, he’ll track us down and take her away from me – you said so yourself.’

  ‘I can’t go on like this, Lillian.’

  ‘I know, I know, but what can I do?’

  When she dropped the children off at school a couple of days later, Pip headed for Ham Bridge Halt and bought a ticket for Durrington-on-Sea Station. The station itself was easily a mile from the village, but Pip didn’t walk down the boulevard; she headed west. Apart from a couple of well-built houses, the rest was farm and nursery land along little lanes. It was a pleasant stroll to get to her twenty acres. The day before, at the town hall, she had discovered that this whole area was earmarked for a huge housing estate. With the war almost over, people were beginning to look to the future. The Lord alone knew how much housing stock had been bombed out of existence or bomb-damaged, and people needed somewhere to live.

  She studied her deeds and found the place. It was quite a long way from the main road, so it would take a while for building work to get this far (if it ever did), but it was definitely part of the planned Maybridge estate.

  A man walking his dog came towards her. ‘How do?’ he asked, tipping his hat.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Pip. ‘I’m just looking to see where all these new houses are going to be.’

  ‘Right down to the Littlehampton Road, so I hear,’ he said. ‘Sad to see the open spaces going.’

  ‘I agree,’ she said, ‘but people need homes.’

  ‘Too right,’ he said, ‘and to tell you the truth, the land wasn’t much good for growing anyway. Too wet.’

  Pip frowned. ‘So how can they build houses on it?’ she asked. ‘Surely they’ll have the same problem.’

  ‘Not any more they won’t,’ said the man. ‘Drained it, haven’t they. Piped the springs straight into the Rife over yonder.’ He waved his hand towards the village of Ferring. ‘You can do anything when you’ve got the money.’

  Pip folded away her map. ‘So the land must be worth a bob or two now.’

  ‘I should say so,’ said the man. ‘There was a time when old Tobias Light was offering to sell it off at three pounds an acre, but nobody wanted to buy it.’

  ‘Three pounds an acre,’ Pip squeaked.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the man. ‘I wish I’d taken some. Back then, he couldn’t even give it away, but they say it’s fetching anything up to eighteen pounds an acre now.’

  Lillian was kept busy during the run-up to the Christmas season and she could always count on her two greatest fans to be there: Mr Knight and Betty. Iris didn’t come any more. She apologized, saying she had to do fire-watching duties on the Town Hall roof. Lillian expressed her sympathy, but she wasn’t too bothered. She didn’t want to fall out with Iris again.

  Nigel still played the piano for her, but their relationship was definitely cooling off. They were in Sompting Village Hall when everything came to a grinding halt. Nigel had wedged the back of a chair under the dressing-room doorknob as they took advantage of a brief moment together. It was rushed, as usual, and Nigel was having a bit of a problem. Lillian’s mind was all over the place, and if she was honest, she wasn’t enjoying the sex any more. Right now, she just wanted him to get on with it.

  There was a sharp rap at the door and a voice outside called, ‘Three minutes, Miss Lillian.’

  Nigel jumped and lost his rhythm.

  ‘Come on, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Hurry up.’

  He jerked himself up sulkily and turned his back to dress.

  Lillian, who was only in her underwear, reached for her panties. ‘Sorry, darling, but I haven’t even done my hair yet.’ She pulled on her dress and sat in front of the brown-spotted mirror. ‘Oh, how I hate these dim and dingy dressing rooms,’ she said, powdering her flushed cheeks. ‘I’m sure I could top the bill in any decent theatre. I’m seriously thinking of getting an agent.’

  Nigel stood motionless by the door, one hand on the doorknob and the other on the chair wedging it shut. ‘I can’t do this any more, Lillian,’ he said quietly.

  She frowned and tutted under her breath. ‘Look, Nigel, I really can’t discuss this at the moment,’ she said irritably. ‘We’ll talk after the show, all right?’

  He pulled the chair away and opened the door. As he left the room, she knew they wouldn’t be discussing anything after the show. What was the point?

  After the worst weather for forty years, with terrific gales and tremendous downpours of rain, the news elsewhere was improving. When the weather allowed, the anti-tank defences on the Sussex Downs were being filled in, and the government announced that every child between the ages of six months and eighteen years would be entitled to an extra half-pound of sweets for Christmas. Both events were greeted with a great deal of pleasure. ‘At last we’ve got somewhere to walk off all the calories,’ Pip quipped. There was also the promise of boxes of Iraqi dates in the shops. They would be sold at tuppence a packet and one point in the ration book. Abroad, General MacArthur headed an invasion force in the Philippines with not one ship lost.

  The girls decided to meet up for Christmas again this year. They planned to go to Phyllis’s place in Broadwater and all chip in together for the meal because rationing and shortages were just as bad as ever.

  Johnny was still in Italy. His regiment had been helping to mop up any resistance left behind, rounding up war criminals and helping the hard-pressed Italians to get back to normal life again. Apart from telling her how excited he was about the baby and what a clever girl she was, he had written to say that his demob papers were in the pipeline but that he may be posted to the Far East before then. It seemed grossly unfair to Stella, and she wasn’t the only one. In fact, there was a brewing rebellion among the ranks. All the men wanted was to go home. Demob papers didn’t mean freedom. Rumour had it that a man might have to stay in the army for anything up to two more years before getting his final discharge papers.

  With Christmas over and a few more days of the school holidays left, Georgie and the DD Gang were bored. They hadn’t found any good trophies lately, and apart from the doodlebugs, nothing much was happening now. There was even talk of the war coming to an end. Everyone agreed that Norman’s gun was the best thing they’d found during the war, but, try as he might, he couldn’t find any ammo. The gun was followed as a close second by Goliath, but they couldn’t get it to fit in the chamber of Norman’s gun. Leslie suggested using a hammer to bang it in, but so far that hadn’t been attempted. Apart from the odd bit of shrapnel, there wasn’t much else to be had.

  Gideon had nicked two cigarettes and some chocolate off his gran. The boys shared the chocolate around.

  ‘It’s very small,’ said Norman. ‘I’ve never seen chocolate like this before.’

  He was right, but there were enough squares to have one each, with one left over. It was dark and rather bitter, but chocolate is chocolate, so they munched it happily.

  ‘I don’t like it much,’ said Billy. ‘I ain’t ever seen it in the sweetshop. It don’t taste like Cadbury’s.’

  Georgie turned the wrapping paper over. ‘EX-Lax,’ he read aloud. And before anyone could stop him, he scoffed the last bit himself.

  It was time to light their cigarettes. At first, Billy told Georgie he was too young to smoke, but after a strident protest from Georgie himself, and cries of ‘Aw, go on’ from the other boys, Billy relented. Georgie took a long suck from the end of the cigarette and smoke filled his mouth. He swallowed and the next few minutes were pure agony. He coughed and spluttered so hard he thought his lungs would come out of his mout
h. It brought tears to his eyes. As his friends rolled around the floor laughing, Georgie made up his mind that this was his first and last ever cigarette.

  ‘See!’ Billy cried triumphantly. ‘I told you so. You’re too young to smoke.’

  That rebuke was worse than the pain, and Georgie slunk away into a dark corner to recover. A little while later, the boys came to the end of both cigarettes.

  ‘I’ve got some fag papers,’ said Leslie. ‘If we could find a few dog-ends, we could make our own ciggies.’

  But nobody had any dog-ends and the boys commiserated with each other.

  ‘I know where there are plenty of dog-ends,’ said Georgie. ‘Shall I get them?’

  ‘You said your mum never smoked,’ Billy accused.

  ‘She doesn’t,’ said Georgie, ‘but I can still get some.’

  When he came back a few minutes later, the boys were surprised by how many he had. They counted thirty-five. Some were obviously very old, but nevertheless, thirty-five!

  ‘Where did you get them?’ cried Gideon.

  ‘In the alleyway outside my house,’ said Georgie.

  ‘Somebody must be keeping an eye on your house,’ said Leslie.

  ‘Perhaps it’s someone from MI5,’ Derek Fox piped up.

  ‘Maybe your mum is a German spy,’ Colin’s brother Arthur suggested.

  ‘You shut up about my mum,’ Georgie cried as he pushed the boy hard. The boy retaliated and before long they were having a proper scrap, with everybody cheering them on. In the end, Billy pulled them apart; then Colin Watts and Derek set about splitting the fag ends and extracting the few strands of tobacco left. They rubbed them together and managed to make another three rather skinny cigarettes. They all smoked one and saved the other two for another time. Because it was winter, it was far too cold to stay very long in the cellar anyway. There was another problem as well. A funny smell. Gideon accused various people of doing a blow-off, but each boy denied it. The smell lingered, so no one protested when Billy decided it was getting near teatime and the boys had to go home.

  ‘All them dog-ends,’ Billy said to Georgie as they left. ‘I reckon someone really is watching your house.’

  Gideon nodded in agreement. ‘Yeah. Who is it?’

  Georgie shrugged. He’d never really thought about it before. He’d simply noticed the increasingly large number ground down in the dirt. ‘Do you think I should tell my mum?’

  Billy shook his head. ‘Women can’t deal with things like this on their own,’ he said gravely, as they put the bits and pieces back to hide the doorway. ‘They need a man around to handle the tough stuff.’

  ‘You never know – he could be a German spy,’ said Gideon.

  ‘We might have to creep up on him and grab him like this,’ Billy went on, using Gideon to show how it could be done.

  As he watched the two boys scrapping, Georgie felt a delicious shiver of excitement. Could he really catch a German spy? Gosh, wouldn’t his dad be proud of him if he did that?

  Pip still had no word at all from Peter, and the war in the Far East was as bitter as ever. Poor Georgie had had a dreadfully upset tummy of late. She thought it was some sort of bug, but fortunately Hazel didn’t catch it. He’d had a couple of accidents in his bed, which meant a lot of washing, so when Mrs Armitage offered to have the children over to her place, Pip treated herself to an afternoon at the pictures. In the newsreels, she’d been moved by an iconic image of General MacArthur, flanked by members of the Philippine Government, coming ashore at Leyte. Apparently, no landing craft was available, but he was so determined to keep the promise he’d made two years before that he waded through the waves. His speech gave Pip a real hope that Peter might be freed soon. ‘People of the Philippines,’ MacArthur had said, ‘I have returned. We have come dedicated and committed to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control . . .’

  That night, Pip cried herself to sleep.

  In the end, she sold the land in Durrington, not to Terry Wilcox, or Tobias Light for that matter. The man she’d met that day by the field had a few acres at a reasonable price, and the rest went to Worthing Borough Council. They were offering a little below the market price, but by the time she’d enquired about it, that had topped twenty pounds an acre. Pip walked away with almost four hundred pounds. It was time to put her other plan into action.

  There was one thing, however, that was slightly more pressing. She’d had a letter from the Wimborne solicitor. The headed paper from Peak, Hall & Ellis had come as a surprise. It was to inform her that because she had been unable to reconcile with her twin, and that a year had passed, the legacy was to be passed on to another beneficiary. There was no indication as to who that was, but Mr Ellis indicated that a certain person wanted to be put in touch with her, a Mr Stanley Abbott.

  As she read the words, Pip took in her breath. That wasn’t possible. How could it be? All those years ago, her mother had told her and her sister that their father was dead.

  CHAPTER 28

  ‘But surely you want to find out what happened to your father?’ said Stella.

  Pip stared at the floor. Having spent the past three days thinking about it, she had decided to confide in someone. After everything they’d been through, Stella and Lillian were the obvious choice. They were ensconced in Stella’s sitting room in front of a roaring fire.

  They had spent the day helping Stella clean up her house. The army had handed her home back, but they’d left it in a hell of a state. Stella had big plans, but she’d made them without much thought about her condition. Christmas had come and gone. It was a strange one this year. Everybody carried on as best they could, but with their men still far from home, it felt rather like they were being denied the one thing they wanted most. With Stella in the final stages of her pregnancy, spending the whole day slaving over a Hoover, scrubbing kitchen floors and washing windows was more than a tad beyond her now.

  ‘You can’t ignore this, Pip,’ said Stella. ‘This could be your very last chance to hear his side of the story.’

  ‘Stella’s right,’ said Lillian. ‘You ought to find out what happened to him. If not for yourself, do it for Georgie and Hazel.’

  Stella was right. On the face of it, it seemed obvious that Pip would want to know what had happened all those years ago. Hadn’t she grieved for him? Hadn’t she often said, ‘If only Daddy was here’? But now that she’d discovered he wasn’t dead, she was angry. Why had he suddenly turned up after all this time? What gave him the right to expect her to come running? It was the stuff of miracles, but the more Pip thought about it, the crosser she felt. She handed Stella the letter from Mr Ellis.

  Stella read it carefully before passing it on to Lillian. ‘You never did tell us what happened when you went to Wimborne with your sister. Does that have any bearing on this letter?’

  ‘I thought Marion was taking me to Wimborne to meet my mother,’ said Pip, ‘but there was more to it than that.’

  ‘We always thought you were on your own,’ said Lillian. ‘It came as a bit of a shock to discover you had a family.’

  ‘I left home at sixteen,’ said Pip. She saw them glance at each other. ‘I always felt like the odd one out,’ she continued, her voice beginning to sound desperate. ‘Mum didn’t have a lot of time for me. Marion always was her favourite. I know it sounds petulant, but I promise you it’s the God’s honest truth.’

  ‘We believe you utterly,’ said Stella. ‘You know that.’ She stood up and waddled to the drinks cupboard. ‘Anybody fancy a little elderberry wine?’

  Pip and Lillian gave her a curt nod. Then Lillian said, ‘You left home at sixteen. Was that because of Marion getting burned?’

  ‘I’d already planned to go,’ said Pip. ‘I had a job lined up and everything, but they wanted me there for the party.’

  ‘So you last saw your dad at the party?’ said Stella, coming back with two glasses.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Pip. ‘Daddy had gone years before. That’s what made it so
hard. It had always been Daddy and me, then Mum and Marion. I was five when he died and we moved house.’

  ‘Only he didn’t die,’ said Stella, returning to her chair with her own glass of wine.

  ‘Apparently not,’ Pip said bitterly.

  ‘So where has he been all this time?’ asked Lillian.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Pip. ‘And why did he let me go on believing he was dead? Why didn’t he contact me?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Stella. ‘Did anyone in the family know where you were?’

  Pip felt her face colour.

  ‘A friend of the family could have told him where she was,’ Lillian suggested to Stella.

  Pip shook her head. ‘No, she’s right. No one knew where I was. When I last saw my mother and sister, they were living in Devon, in a little place called Hemyock.’

  ‘So your mother moved twice,’ said Stella.

  ‘Three times,’ said Pip. ‘Marion and I were born in London. We moved to Hemyock when Daddy died, and now, of course, she’s in Wimborne. Although come to think about it, I never went to her house, so she could be anywhere.’

  ‘Who told you your dad had died?’ said Stella. ‘Did you actually see his body?’

  Pip shook her head.

  ‘Do you remember his funeral?’

  Again Pip shook her head. ‘He never had one. I thought it was odd at the time but Mummy got cross when I asked her about it.’

  Pip sighed. She was beginning to see things a lot differently now. Daddy hadn’t died at all. Her mother had run away and left him. She’d made a whole new life for them in Hemyock and neither of the girls had realized what she’d done.

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t get in touch with you,’ said Lillian.