Sing Them Home

by Pam Weaver

  ‘I think you might be right,’ said Pip, ‘but how did he find me after all this time?’ She looked at the letter again, and somewhere in her head, a light dawned. ‘It was this legacy,’ she went on. ‘He must be the other beneficiary. After all, Granny was his mother. He must have been told the terms of the will and asked Mr Ellis to put us in touch again.’

  ‘So will you let Mr Ellis give him your address?’ Stella asked.

  Pip looked uncertain. ‘I don’t want to be party to a family feud. I know I may be denying Georgie and Hazel a grandparent, but I don’t want them to put up with what I have. I want to spare them that.’

  ‘I think that’s perfectly understandable,’ said Lillian.

  ‘But perhaps your father has been wronged as well,’ said Stella. ‘Maybe none of this is his fault.’

  Pip swirled her wine round its glass. ‘Oh, I don’t know what to do,’ she wailed.

  Stella changed seats and sat next to her. ‘Why don’t I come with you?’ she said.

  ‘Count me in too,’ said Lillian. ‘Ask Mr Ellis to get your father to meet you on neutral ground somewhere. That way, he won’t know where you live. Then if you’re still unsure, you can walk away.’

  Pip dabbed the end of her nose with her hanky. ‘OK.’

  ‘But don’t leave it too long before you set up a meeting,’ said Stella, stroking her bump. ‘In a couple of weeks, I won’t be able to risk going very far from home. I don’t want to end up going into labour on a bus somewhere.’

  When Georgie got in from school, his mother wore that tight-lipped you’ve-done-something-and-I’m-annoyed-about-it expression. As he dashed upstairs to change out of his school things, Georgie wracked his brains to think what it could be. Had he left his washing on the bedroom floor? No. Had he forgotten to feed the rabbit? No. Had he annoyed his sister? No. Well, no more than usual.

  It was far too cold to play outside, though the evenings were a little lighter. He longed to be able to get out and play in the street. He might even venture a little further if no one was looking. The sea defences were slowly being dismantled, and they hadn’t heard Moaning Minnie for yonks. It seemed that bombing raids were becoming a thing of the past. The Allied planes continued going over to the Continent, but the German planes were non-existent. The grown-ups said it was all over bar the shouting, which for Georgie and his mates was very disappointing. The war had been the most exciting time of their lives.

  He came downstairs and ambled into the kitchen with his head down. His sister had been sent into the sitting room to play, so things looked bad for Georgie.

  ‘Sit down, Georgie,’ said Pip.

  He did his best to look as shocked and innocent as possible as his mother laid three dog-ends on the table in front of him. As soon as he saw them, Georgie felt his face flame. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He’d forgotten about them altogether. He’d got to the den last Saturday, but nobody was there. Too cold. He’d picked up the dog-ends on the way back, meaning to put them somewhere safe until the gang reassembled.

  ‘Have you been smoking?’ Pip accused.

  ‘No, Mummy.’

  ‘Then how do you account for these? I found them in your trouser pocket.’

  Georgie swallowed hard. ‘I picked them up.’

  ‘Picked them up? Where?’

  ‘In the back alley.’

  Pip frowned.

  ‘I was trying to be tidy,’ said Georgie.

  His mother looked sceptical. ‘Are you sure you didn’t smoke them yourself?’

  ‘No, Mummy!’ He hoped the horror in his voice at such a suggestion would be enough. After all, he was telling the truth. He’d never smoked a dog-end.

  ‘Because if I find—’ Pip went on.

  ‘I haven’t, Mummy. Really I haven’t.’

  She threw the dog-end in the waste bin. ‘I don’t want you picking up things like that,’ she said. ‘It’s dirty. You don’t know whose mouth it’s been in.’

  He was about to tell her about the German spy watching in the alley, but then he remembered what Billy had said. ‘Can I have something to eat?’

  ‘We’ll be having tea before long,’ his mother said, reaching for the potatoes to peel.

  ‘Aw, Mum,’ said Georgie. ‘Can’t I have some toast?’

  Pip grinned. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said, putting on the grill. ‘Only one slice, mind, or you’ll spoil your tea.’

  ‘Thanks, Mummy.’

  ‘You can do a slice for your sister as well,’ said Pip.

  When the toast was done, Georgie reached for the dripping. He dug the knife in deep. There was some lovely jelly at the bottom and he didn’t need to guess which one of them was going to have that.

  As it turned out, the wheels of officialdom move very slowly and so the birth of Timothy Michael Bell came before Pip met her father. He was born on Sunday February 25th 1945. At seven pounds five ounces, he was a good weight and had a lusty cry. Stella had him at her mother’s place in Broadwater. That seemed the best option. Phyllis would be around virtually all the time if she were needed, and if she had to attend to any of her WVS duties, her daily, Mrs Wilshaw, would be on hand.

  It wasn’t until Easter that the arrangements were finalized for Pip to meet her father for the first time in twenty years. The solicitor had suggested the Grand Hotel in Brighton as the venue, but then it was discovered that it was still under orders from the army. Group Captain Stanley Abbott agreed to meet all three of them for afternoon tea in the Norfolk Ramada Jarvis Hotel, just along the road, not quite as large as the Grand, but apparently every bit as posh. Pip, Stella and Lillian were very excited.

  ‘I’ve never even been in a place like that,’ Lillian gasped. ‘I can’t wait.’

  Pip had been all for catching the bus to Brighton to meet her father, but Stella wouldn’t hear of it, especially when she’d learned of the solicitor’s suggested meeting place. ‘You can’t possibly go swanning up to the Grand Hotel with a bus ticket in your hand!’ she’d cried. So they’d spruced up the car and filled the tank with petrol.

  They’d put on their finest clothes, of course. Lillian looked the best, in a smart grey dress with ivory buttons. She wore a white hat and carried a pair of white cotton crocheted gloves, which matched perfectly, though she could only wear one and carry the other: the person who had made them hadn’t got the pattern quite right. There were only three fingers on the left hand.

  Pip wore a mid-blue wrap-over dress with dark blue gloves and a rather jaunty hat with a curled brim. She carried a brown clutch bag and wore tan-coloured brogue-fronted shoes with the regulation two-inch heels.

  Stella had almost got her figure back, but she decided to wear a fairly loose cherry-red dress with a gathered waist and white Peter Pan collar. Her hat was cream felt.

  Lillian drove, with Pip in the front passenger seat. Stella took up the whole of the back seat because she had Timothy Michael in a Moses basket beside her.

  Stella was happy to let Lillian drive, and Pip looked every inch the lady sat in the front passenger seat. There wasn’t much conversation as they motored to Brighton. Stella was keeping a watchful eye on her son, and Pip was too nervous for lively chat, so Lillian talked about something that was becoming her favourite subject – her new career.

  ‘I shan’t be driving the railway van any more after the end of this week,’ she told them. ‘Monty is confident I shall be working full time before long.’

  ‘Monty?’ said Pip absent-mindedly.

  ‘Oh, do stay awake, Pip, dear,’ said Lillian, slowing down to take a corner. ‘Montague Rankin, my agent. He’s already got me a couple of nights at the Hippodrome in Eastbourne and a week in a variety show over in Croydon. There’s even some talk of a slot on Variety Bandbox on the radio.’

  Pip was delighted for her friend. ‘It’s all happening now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mother is going to look after Flora for a while,’ Lillian went on. ‘Just until I’m established, you know. By that time, I should be earning en
ough to pay for a nanny, and then she can travel with me.’

  ‘What about Gordon?’ Stella asked.

  ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,’ Lillian said dismissively. ‘Did I mention that Cyril Fletcher is on the bill at Croydon?’

  They loved the look of the West Pier in Brighton, though there was no chance of taking a stroll. Every pier in the country had been crippled just after the war started. The thinking was that if a larger ship could get its troops near the shore, it would aid an invasion, so the middle decking had been removed. Today, a group of soldiers were removing the Bofors and Lewis guns that overlooked the sea. There was no threat of invasion now. It was really beginning to feel that the war was coming to an end at last.

  They collected their things and swanked across the road and into the hotel. The Grand was by far the poshest place Lillian had ever seen, though Canadian and, later on, Polish soldiers had been billeted in its rooms since D-Day. Outside the Norfolk, a concierge in a very smart uniform with brass buttons down the front and gold fringes on his shoulder lappets greeted them at the door. They climbed the steps and he pushed open the monogrammed door panel. They found themselves in a foyer with pillars and a glistening marble floor. They’d planned that they would wander in looking confident and as if being in a place like this was second nature, but instead they gazed open-mouthed at the huge square staircase leading to the hotel rooms. None of them had ever seen anything so ornate.

  At the reception desk, Stella explained that they were here to meet Group Captain Abbott and a pageboy was assigned to show them into the lounge area. By this time, Pip was a bag of nerves, so Lillian slipped her arm through hers and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

  Despite the war shortages, the Norfolk lived up to its name, with sixty-four rooms on four floors. On the outside of the building, the three mansard roofs still retained their wrought-ironwork decoration, despite the wartime salvage schemes. The main entrance had Corinthian columns, and the cantilevered four-storey staircase took their breath away. They were shown into the dining area. As they came into the room, a tall military man rose to his feet in an alcove near the window and Pip caught her breath. Lillian and Stella held back as she walked towards him. Her step was uncertain, as was his.

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Pip, my dear.’

  She stood in front of him for several seconds; then he opened his arms and she went to him.

  CHAPTER 29

  Pip had been in a bit of a dream since meeting her father. She’d kept noticing silly things, like the way he held his teacup to his chest as he drank, the way he tweaked the end of his moustache or the way he stood in the doorway as they said their goodbyes. Before they’d met, she’d made up her mind to be angry with him. She’d rehearsed what she’d say again and again. How could you just up and leave like that? she’d tell him. Why did you let me go on believing you were dead? And why turn up after all this time? What exactly do you want, Daddy?

  All those questions were obsolete now. Lillian’s hunch had been right all along. As he talked, she’d realized he had been wronged as much as she had been. It seemed that her mother’s bitterness had spilled over and poisoned everything. No wonder she couldn’t remember her father’s death: it never happened, and that’s why they’d moved away with such haste.

  Her father spoke of days searching for his family, even hiring a private investigator, but to no avail. His eyes moistened as he recalled the pain and frustration he felt. Pip began to understand the devastating effect it must have had on him.

  According to her father, her mother had refused him from the day she and her twin sister had been born. He told her that he had tried to be the loving husband but it seemed that Maud only looked for ways to hurt and humiliate him. She’d refused to go out with him, she’d send back invitations from friends without telling him, and only spoke to their children. Amazingly, he was without malice or bitterness but Pip could see the hurt in his eyes. As he explained, she could hear her mother’s voice in her head: ‘If only you knew what I suffered bringing you into the world.’ It all made sense now. He’d been willing to stick it out for the sake of the children, but one day he’d come home to find they had all gone.

  She and her father had been awkward with each other at first, but gradually they’d felt more comfortable together. He had brought a lady he called his wife, a pleasant-looking woman roughly the same age as him, who clearly adored him. They’d ordered tea, but by the time the tray came, Timothy Michael had been becoming fretful.

  ‘Why don’t you come up to our room?’ Elspeth Abbott suggested. ‘It will give you some privacy to change and feed him.’

  When Stella agreed, Lillian took the opportunity to make an excuse to go to the powder room, leaving the group captain and Pip alone.

  ‘Are you and Elspeth really married?’ she asked.

  The group captain sighed. ‘I spent years looking for your mother, but in the end I went to court and divorced her in absentia on the grounds of abandonment.’

  Pip’s heart went out to him. ‘It’s not been easy for you, has it, Daddy?’

  ‘I’m happy now,’ he assured her. ‘And I’m really, really happy to have found you again. Tell me about your childhood,’ he said, handing her a cup of tea.

  ‘There’s not a lot to say,’ said Pip. ‘I wasn’t exactly happy. Marion and I fought a lot, and Mummy always took her part, but it was pretty ordinary until my sixteenth birthday. That’s when Marion got burned.’

  ‘Yes, I was sorry to hear about that,’ he said. ‘The solicitor explained what happened.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Pip desperately, all the old feelings of guilt flooding back.

  ‘I didn’t think for one moment that it was.’ Her father smiled. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ His voice was gentle.

  ‘Not really,’ said Pip, flicking an imaginary piece of fluff from her skirt. ‘No one ever believes me anyway.’

  ‘Try me,’ he said.

  ‘We were sixteen,’ she began with a sigh. ‘I’d already decided to leave home. I’d got a job in a residential children’s home. It was the only way I could think of to keep a roof over my head.’

  Her father nodded. ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘Mother bought us new dresses. I liked the blue one better. Blue is my colour.’ Pip looked away, a lump forming in her throat. She hadn’t spoken about this for years, not in detail. ‘But Marion wanted the blue, so I had to have the magenta dress. I didn’t like it much and I guess I let it show.’ She glanced back at him. Her father was listening impassively. ‘We were in our bedroom and we rowed about it. I said some bad things. I remember calling her selfish and mean. She didn’t care. She was just twirling herself round in front of the mirror. I was so angry I wanted to clock her, so I came downstairs and waited in the hall. That’s when I heard Marion scream. I belted back upstairs and she was just standing there with her dress on fire.’ Pip’s eyes filled with tears. ‘She’d been trying to pat the flames out, but she looked like some grotesque torch. I tried to make her get down. I was screaming at her to roll on the carpet, but she hit me away and tried to run downstairs. Mother came upstairs and between us we got the flames out, but she was horribly burned.’

  The group captain leaned forward and took Pip’s hand. ‘It must have been awful for you as well.’

  Pip looked up at him and burst into tears just as Lillian came back from the toilet and Elspeth returned from their room. It was an awkward moment. Lillian was furious, convinced that Pip’s father had said something terrible to upset her.

  ‘What have you done to her?’ she demanded.

  Elspeth seemed slightly embarrassed, but eventually they realized it was all right and they calmed down.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my dear,’ said the group captain eventually. ‘I had no intention of making you cry.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Pip hiccupped, glad that the table was in an alcove. ‘It’s just that you’re the first person who has ever considered how ba
dly I felt about it.’

  It was such a relief for Pip that she no longer had to protest her innocence.

  ‘Mother was convinced I had moved the fireguard,’ she went on, ‘and Marion told her I’d pushed her, but I hadn’t. Really I hadn’t. I only wanted to get her onto the floor.’

  ‘Why do people put a mirror over a fireplace,’ the captain mused. ‘She must have leaned a little too close.’

  Lillian and Elspeth looked at each other and nodded.

  ‘Mother never liked me,’ Pip said. ‘I couldn’t understand why, but she never did.’

  ‘It always was you and me, and Marion and your mother,’ said the group captain, reaching for Pip’s hand again. ‘We had some good times together, didn’t we?’

  Pip’s eyes were welling up again as she nodded. ‘I don’t know what I did wrong, Daddy.’

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘Your mother was a difficult woman with everyone, not just you.’

  ‘I think I can guess why she took against you,’ said Elspeth. They all looked at her, their expressions those of mild surprise. ‘Well,’ Elspeth continued, ‘you’re the spitting image of your father, aren’t you?’

  ‘Marion and I are twins,’ said Pip.

  ‘But not identical,’ Lillian reminded her.

  Georgie had been amazed when she’d told him his grandfather was a group captain in the RAF. ‘You mean he flies Spitfires?’ he’d said, his eyes bright with excitement. ‘Cor, wait until I tell the boys at school!’

  ‘I’m not sure he actually flies them,’ Pip cautioned. ‘He’s more like the man in charge.’ But Georgie wasn’t really listening. He was running around the garden with his arms outspread as he made engine noises.

  Hazel was a little more circumspect, and slightly confused as to where he fitted in the family.

  ‘Granddad is my daddy,’ said Pip.

  ‘But where has he come from?’

  She decided it was easier to explain that in just the same way that her father was away fighting the war, so too had her grandfather been. She would tell Hazel the full story when she was old enough to understand.