Home Front Girls

by Rosie Goodwin

  Lucy glanced up at the first knock and he saw that his assumption was correct. She had been crying but she hastily swiped the back of her hands across her cheeks before hurrying through the kitchen to let him in.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ he asked timidly, and to his horror she burst into tears again. Quickly placing his arm about her shaking shoulders he led her through into the kitchen and plonked her down on the chair.

  ‘Er . . . can I get you a drink o’ water or somethin’?’ He felt totally useless and didn’t know what to do.

  ‘N-no, thank you.’ Lucy gulped as he looked helplessly on. ‘I-I just had some bad news this afternoon but I’ll be fine, honestly. You get back to Mrs P.’

  ‘Well, if you’re quite sure.’ He then turned and fled.

  ‘So why ain’t she been round then?’ Mrs P demanded the second he set foot back through the door.

  ‘I ain’t got a clue, Glad,’ he answered, ‘but the lass is in a rare old state, I don’t mind tellin’ yer. Sobbin’ ’er little heart out she is, an’ you know I ain’t no good in situations like that.’

  Mrs P’s knitting needles stopped clicking as she stared at him. ‘Didn’t yer ask her what were wrong then?’

  ‘Course I did,’ he defended himself. ‘But all she’d say were that she’d had some bad news. P’rhaps it would be better if you went round.’ He secretly hoped that she would. She hadn’t gone over the doorstep since the day they’d had the telegram about Freddy, and even going across the yard would be a start, surely?

  ‘I dare say I should,’ she muttered, although she felt as if he’d asked her to climb a mountain. She had got used to being confined within her own four walls and the thought of venturing out was terrifying. But then he’d said that Lucy was crying, and she’d come to look on the girl as one of her own. Laying her knitting aside, the big woman took a deep breath and rose from her seat, then forcing herself to place one foot in front of the other she crossed the room and stepped out into the sunshine. It felt strange to breathe the fresh air but she didn’t linger to enjoy it, merely kept on going until she was safe in Lucy’s kitchen. Only then did she realise that she was shaking like a leaf, but still she held herself together as she approached Lucy to ask, ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘Oh, Mrs P.’ Lucy flung herself into the woman’s arms and the tears came fast and furious until Mrs P was convinced that she was going to drown in them.

  ‘That’s it, you cry it all out now an’ when you’ve done I’ll make you a nice hot cup o’ sweet tea an’ you can tell me all about it.’ Sod the sugar ration, thought Mrs P as she continued to hold Lucy tightly. At last the sobs subsided to dull hiccuping whimpers and Mrs P tenderly stroked the damp hair from Lucy’s sweating forehead. The poor lass had worked herself up into a rare old lather, there was no doubt about it.

  She gently pressed her back into the chair and minutes later when Lucy sat with a steaming mug of tea in front of her, the woman asked, ‘Now how about yer tell me what’s wrong, eh? They reckon a trouble shared is a trouble halved.’

  Lucy seemed to be remarkably calm now. Too calm by half, Mrs P privately thought, as if she’d had all the stuffing knocked out of her.

  ‘Is it Mary – or Joel?’ she asked softly.

  Lucy shook her head. ‘No. It’s . . . it’s my mother. She died today.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Yer mother! But I thought yer said yer mother had died just afore you moved here?’ Mrs P gasped.

  ‘I told everyone that,’ Lucy answered dully, ‘but she didn’t. She’s been in a hospital since just after my dad died – well, an asylum really. An asylum for the insane. That’s where I’ve been going every Sunday, to see her. And today . . . she died.’

  ‘Oh, luvvie.’ Mrs P was horrified. And to think that this poor girl had kept that terrible secret to herself for all this time. No wonder she and Joel had always clammed up whenever she had probed about their parents. ‘But whyever didn’t yer tell me? There’s no shame in the poor soul bein’ mentally ill.’

  ‘There’s a lot more to it than that,’ Lucy whispered. ‘But I can’t tell anyone about it – ever! I promised Joel.’

  Mrs P was confused now but she wisely held her tongue. ‘So what will you be doin’ about the funeral?’ she asked tentatively. Perhaps Lucy would need some help in organising it. She was very young to have that sort of responsibility on her shoulders.

  ‘It’s all being taken care of by the asylum,’ Lucy croaked. ‘They have their own burial ground there. All I have to do is turn up for the service on Wednesday.’

  It all sounded very cold and clinical and Mrs P shuddered. ‘But won’t there be people who you’ll want to be there to give her a send-off?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘No, it will be just me. And Mrs P – I’d be very grateful if you didn’t mention this to anyone.’

  ‘Of course I won’t if you don’t want me to, apart from my Fred, but he’ll not say nothin’,’ the woman promised her. ‘But there must be something I can do for yer. Would yer like me to come with you?’

  ‘No, I appreciate the offer but I’d rather go alone.’

  ‘So be it then, but if yer change yer mind, the offer’s there.’ Mrs P was secretly appalled at the thought of the poor woman having such a wretched turnout for her funeral. But then if that was how Lucy wanted it, it wasn’t her place to interfere or express her opinion. Everyone grieved differently and it appeared that Lucy just wanted to get it over with as quickly and as quietly as she could.

  She stayed with the girl for another half an hour, although she soon realised that she might as well not have been there. Lucy had become very quiet and distracted, so eventually she told her, ‘I’m goin’ now, love, but I’m only next door should yer need me. Are you sure you’ll be all right on yer own? You could always come an’ stay wi’ me an’ Fred tonight?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’d rather be on my own for now if you don’t mind.’

  Mrs P slipped quietly away and soon she was back in her own four walls.

  ‘You ain’t never gonna believe what I’m about to tell yer,’ she told Fred, and when she went on to do just that, his mouth gaped in amazement.

  ‘But she never breathed a word about her mam still bein’ alive. Do yer think she were ashamed of her?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it don’t sound like she were,’ his wife said. ‘In fact, she’s broken-hearted an’ you ain’t like that if you’ve been ashamed o’ someone. It appears she really loved her mam, so I can’t make head nor tail of it. An’ what makes it worse is the fact that she can’t even let Joel know. He could be anywhere, God bless him.’ The same as my Freddy, she thought, and the pain was there again, as sharp and acute as the day she had received the telegram telling her that he was missing. Life could be bloody cruel at times, there was no doubt about it.

  Lucy didn’t go into work the next day and Dotty and even Annabelle were concerned about her.

  ‘It isn’t like her not to turn in,’ Dotty fretted when they met in the lift on their way to the staff dining room. ‘I’ve never known Lucy miss a day; even when Mary was evacuated she came in late, and if she’d had anything planned she would have mentioned it to us.’

  ‘We could always pop round after work if you haven’t got anything planned,’ Annabelle suggested. ‘Mother won’t be in until later anyway so she wouldn’t miss me.’

  ‘We’ll do that then,’ Dotty answered with quiet determination. ‘Unless she decides to come in late, and then we can stop worrying.’

  But Lucy didn’t come in, so straight after work the girls headed for the bus station and boarded a bus to the end of Lucy’s street in Tile Hill.

  ‘Crikey, her curtains are all drawn,’ Dotty said worriedly as they approached the house. ‘You don’t think she’s had bad news about Joel, do you?’

  Annabelle’s stomach lurched at the very thought of it but she hid her feelings well as they turned up the whitewashed entry that led to Lucy and Mrs P’s shared back yard. Mrs P was
at her kitchen window when Dotty opened the gate and she hurried out to them looking upset.

  ‘Young Lucy’s had some bad news,’ she confided in a hushed voice. ‘In a right two an’ eight she is, bless her soul.’

  ‘It’s not about Joel, is it?’ Annabelle’s eyes were stretched with fear, and relief flooded through her when Mrs P shook her head.

  ‘No, it ain’t about him,’ she whispered. ‘But happen she’ll want to tell yer about it herself. Go on in, the door’s open. I’ve only just checked on her not half an hour since.’

  Dotty nodded, then after tapping lightly on Lucy’s door the girls entered the small kitchen. Lucy appeared in the doorway almost instantly and they saw at a glance that her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen from crying.

  ‘Oh Lucy, whatever’s happened? You look awful.’ Dotty dropped her bag onto the table and seconds later Lucy was in her arms sobbing her heart out again, which was funny when she came to think of it because she’d been sure that she didn’t have a single tear left in her whole body.

  When she finally stopped crying and pulled herself together, she seemed to be struggling to come to a decision. She then gave a loud sigh and after motioning for them to sit down, she sat opposite them and began twisting her fingers together.

  ‘You may as well know, my mother died yesterday,’ she said quietly, and for a while the silence was all-consuming as her friends stared at her in shocked disbelief.

  It was Dotty who broke it eventually when she said, ‘B-but I thought you lost both your parents a few years ago.’

  ‘It was easier to tell everyone that,’ Lucy said, ‘but in actual fact my mum was in a mental asylum.’

  ‘Is that where you disappeared off to every Sunday afternoon?’ Dotty asked gently, and Lucy nodded.

  ‘You should have told us,’ Annabelle said. ‘We’re supposed to be friends, aren’t we? We wouldn’t have thought any less of you.’

  ‘Well, you know now,’ Lucy answered. But not all of it, she thought, never all of it!

  ‘We thought something must be wrong when you didn’t turn in to work,’ Dotty told her. ‘Is there anything we can do to help – with the funeral arrangements, for instance?’ Never having had to organise anything like that before she was secretly relieved when Lucy declined the offer.

  ‘No. Thanks for offering, but it’s all arranged for Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Blimey, that’s quick, isn’t it?’ Annabelle blurted out. She had never been known for her tact but Lucy didn’t take offence.

  ‘The asylum has arranged everything,’ she told them in a wobbly voice. ‘And Mum will be buried within the grounds with the minimum of fuss.’

  Dotty frowned in confusion. ‘Are you quite sure that’s what she would have wanted?’ she asked with concern. ‘I mean – wouldn’t she have wanted to be buried with your dad?’

  ‘No, never!’ The words burst from Lucy before she could stop herself and she squirmed with embarrassment. ‘I mean . . . it’s better this way.’

  ‘Well, if you’re quite sure,’ Dotty said hesitantly. ‘I just hope they haven’t talked you into something you’re not happy about and that you’ll regret later. She was your mum, after all.’

  ‘I am sure,’ Lucy told her and then rising she asked, ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve run out of sugar, I’m afraid, but I’ve got some saccharin.’

  ‘I’ll make it,’ Dotty offered, but Lucy said, ‘No, it’s all right. I’ll do it, I’m better when I’m keeping busy,’ and she turned away as the two girls exchanged a confused glance. You could have knocked them both down with a feather. Why hadn’t Lucy told them that her mum was alive?

  An hour later as they were walking back to the bus stop, Annabelle commented, ‘It’s strange isn’t it? That Lucy never told us her mother was still alive, I mean?’

  ‘Perhaps she was ashamed because she was mentally ill?’ Dotty suggested, although that didn’t seem like Lucy. They shrugged and moved on. All they could do, the two friends agreed, was to be there for her now, if and when she needed a shoulder to cry on.

  Lucy was back at work on Wednesday afternoon following the funeral, and the other two instantly picked up on the fact that she didn’t want to talk about it. In fact, it was almost as if it was any ordinary day, and no one seeing Lucy would have guessed that she had just buried her mother.

  ‘Best leave her to deal with it in her own way,’ Dotty whispered during the afternoon break while Lucy was being served at the counter. Annabelle nodded in agreement. There wasn’t much else they could do.

  Dotty had informed Mrs Broadstairs that Lucy was absent due to a family bereavement and to their amazement the woman had gone out of her way to offer condolences the second Lucy had returned to work.

  ‘Crikey, she must be going soft in her old age,’ Annabelle had commented.

  ‘Or could it be love that’s softening her?’ Dotty giggled. ‘I’ve heard rumours that she and Mr Bradley have been seen walking out together.’

  ‘Well, good for her then and long may it last. That kiss under the mistletoe must have done the trick. She’s certainly a lot less prickly now,’ Annabelle sniggered, and then they hurried back to their departments.

  After work they all made their way to the Red Cross first aid course in the church hall near Annabelle’s home in Cheylesmore, and again Lucy’s mother was not mentioned. The two girls wisely didn’t comment, and anyone seeing them all together would never have guessed what a trauma Lucy had been through that day.

  ‘How absolutely awful for the poor girl,’ Miranda said as she and Annabelle walked the short distance home after seeing Dotty and Lucy onto the bus. ‘All evening I felt as if I ought to say something or offer my condolences at the very least, but it was obvious that she didn’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there,’ Annabelle agreed. ‘We expected her to come back from the funeral in bits, but it was as if she had put a shield up, and if we so much as looked at her she was off like a rocket.’ Annabelle couldn’t even begin to imagine how she would have felt if she had had to bury her mother, and in a sudden rare show of affection she tucked her arm through Miranda’s and they walked the rest of the way home enjoying their closeness.

  As Dotty climbed the stairs to her flat that evening she was shocked to find Mrs Cousins hovering outside on the landing, waiting for her. But this was Mrs Cousins as Dotty had never seen her before. Her hair had been curled and she was wearing bright red lipstick and a low-cut flowered dress that left little to the imagination. The woman almost pounced on her.

  ‘Ah, here you are, love,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waitin’ for you an’ I have a big favour to ask. Could yer keep yer ear out for the kids for me? They’re all abed asleep, but I have to go out, see, an’ I’ve no one else to ask. I shouldn’t be gone that long – I promise.’

  A waft of cheap perfume made Dotty blink in surprise. She had never seen Mrs Cousins in her glad rags before. Dotty had been up since six that morning and had been looking forward to falling into bed. But seeing the look on the woman’s face, she felt herself melt.

  ‘All right then, you get off and I’ll keep my eye on them,’ she promised. ‘I’ll pop down every fifteen minutes or so to check that they’re all right.’

  For a moment she was afraid that the woman was going to burst into tears as her heavily mascaraed eyes welled up. She seemed to be a bag of nerves, but then pulling herself together with an enormous effort, she forced a smile.

  ‘You’re a good girl, Dotty,’ she said quietly, and then she was clattering away down the stairs in her high heels, making enough racket to waken the dead.

  Dotty shook her head in bewilderment. I wonder what all that was about? she wondered, then she hurried on inside her flat. Thankfully, the noise travelled up to her flat from Mrs Cousins’s rooms and if one of the children should wake and cry she had no doubt that she would hear them.

  For the rest of the evening she crept into the children’s bedrooms at regular intervals,
but luckily each time she found them fast asleep. At eleven o’clock she went downstairs yet again, and she was just leaving when she almost collided with Mrs Cousins.

  ‘Oh – so you’re here then, Dotty.’ The woman looked acutely embarrassed and as Dotty made to pass her she saw the reason why. Mrs Cousins had a man with her and from the way he was looking at her he hadn’t come for tea and cake. As his eyes raked up and down Dotty she saw that he was in uniform and her stomach tightened. She knew how hard things had been for Mrs Cousins, but surely she hadn’t resorted to bringing men back to make ends meet?

  Mrs Cousins met her eye and she seemed to be silently imploring her not to judge her.

  ‘Right, I’ll be off now then,’ Dotty forced herself to say in as normal a voice as she could manage. ‘They’re all asleep, Mrs Cousins. Goodnight.’

  Once back out on the landing, she let out a deep breath as she pulled Mrs Cousins’s door firmly shut. And then when the initial shock had worn off, she felt sad. Perhaps this was the only way the poor woman could think of to put food on the table for her children. She certainly wouldn’t be the first to resort to walking the streets, and servicemen on leave were making whoopee with the local girls and women. They wanted to have a good time, and were prepared to pay for it. Dotty made her way back up the stairs with a heavy heart.

  When she got in from work the next evening, Mrs Cousins was waiting for her again but this time she was in her usual clothes with the baby in her arms. ‘Look, lass,’ she said in a choked voice, ‘I just wanted to say – please don’t think too badly of me. I had no money for food, see, an’ the kids were hungry, so—’