by Lizzie Lane
‘Take that back, you evil cow!’
Pearl gasped. She’d never heard Frances swear before – not in public, anyway.
Mrs Powell’s coal-black eyes glared at Frances from deep sockets. Her spidery fingers gripped the counter top as though she were using it to keep herself upright.
‘I’ll do no such thing! Your mother was a Jezebel! A scarlet woman. A whore, a slut and any other name you can think of that means the same thing …’
Tears stinging her eyes, Frances ran out of the shop, the strident words ringing out behind her, Pearl at her side.
Once outside, Frances took deep breaths and told herself to calm down, that they were just cruel accusations, that Mrs Powell was unhinged. She’d never used to be quite so bad, but that was before her daughter Miriam had gone away to live with her grandmother.
Their hurrying footsteps echoed on the chill night air, the light from Pearl’s torch picking out the uneven stones that made up the pavement.
‘Frances? Do you think she’s mad?’
Pearl’s breathless tone interrupted the thoughts that Frances was trying to set into some order. As a child, she’d entertained the notion that someday her mother would come back for her. She’d grown up since then and her life at her uncle’s had been mostly happy. Her mother had never figured prominently in her thoughts. Now, thanks to Mrs Powell’s nasty comments, things had changed.
A yearning to know the truth had suddenly emerged like a buried spring bulb coaxed from the earth by incessant rain. Mrs Powell’s words had brought all those old wishes back to the surface.
‘Do you think she’s mad?’ Pearl asked again.
‘As mad as a March hare!’
They had sped on in silence towards the village hall, Frances wondering how much Pearl had taken in and what she thought of the outburst. Even though she’d barely known her mother, it pained Frances to have her maligned. Surely she can’t have been that bad? She didn’t want Pearl to think so.
But Pearl had noticed. ‘Those things Mrs Powell said,’ Pearl began, her voice hesitant. ‘Were they true?’
‘No,’ snapped Frances, glad of the blackout. Pearl must not see that her eyes were moist with hot tears. ‘My mother was wild, but she was not a whore. She was not!’
The music was loud and the village hall was hot and stuffy. Just for a heartbeat, Frances looked down at her dress once her coat was hung up. Scarlet. The colour was scarlet.
She took Pearl by surprise, grabbing her arm. ‘You won’t say a word,’ she hissed. ‘Promise you won’t repeat what that old cow said about my mother. I don’t want the whole village to know.’
Frances’s tone was insistent. She didn’t realise how much her fingers were digging into Pearl’s arm until the girl winced and asked her to let go.
‘I won’t say anything. I promise. It’s a secret. Right?’ Pearl smiled nervously before trotting off to meet her soldier boy.
‘Can I share this secret?’
A handsome stranger – a Yank at that – emerged it seemed from nowhere. He had black hair, an inquisitive expression and held a cigarette in his right hand. His smile was an odd mixture of self-satisfaction and amusement.
Frances felt her cheeks warming. She couldn’t be sure whether he’d heard or not. ‘It’s none of your business!’
‘I was close by. I couldn’t help it.’
His smile annoyed her. Was he just teasing her or had he heard what she’d said? ‘Then you should have made your presence known.’
‘But overhearing secrets is such great entertainment.’
‘It’s rude!’
His smile grew wider and he raised his eyebrows.
Frances snatched her scarf from off her head. Her hair fell in a glossy veil about her shoulders.
‘I’ve heard tell a woman’s hair is her crowning glory,’ he said to her. ‘I was undecided up to now, but after seeing yours …’
‘Stop teasing me.’
‘I’m not. I’m being my usual most sincere self.’
Tonight had started badly and she was in no mood to cope with this. She was about to tell him to get lost when she caught sight of the look in his eyes. His expression had changed. Frances realised he meant exactly what he’d said.
‘Frances! I see you’ve met my friend, Declan O’Malley. Declan, meet my cousin, Frances.’
Ruby Sweet, Frances’s cousin, looked a dream in a blue dress cut down from the bridesmaid’s dress she’d worn at her sister Mary’s wedding. Her hair was bundled into a black snood scattered with sequins. Ruby had crocheted it and Bettina Hicks, their father’s dear friend, had sewn on numerous sequins from what seemed to them a secret haberdashery that she kept in her loft. Ruby had an elegance and confidence beyond her years. Becoming a Home Economist had a lot to do with it. Speaking in front of a room full of strangers had caused her to grow up quickly. She still looked her age, but there was something more commanding about her.
Ruby slid her hand possessively through the crook of the American’s arm and smiled when he bent to kiss her cheek. So this was Ruby’s latest beau! Frances knew there was one but hadn’t met him until now.
Declan O’Malley’s demeanour was warm and courteous. His smile was all embracing.
‘I should have known,’ he said, shaking his head and adopting a doleful expression. ‘Two beauties like you had to belong to the same family. Tell me: how do the guys around here cope with their fluttering hearts?’
Ruby nudged him in the ribs. ‘Declan! Stop that.’ She turned her attention to Frances, her gaze running down over the red dress that had once been hers. ‘You haven’t spilt anything on it already, have you?’
Frances shook her head. ‘No. I’ve only just arrived.’
‘You look flustered. Are you a little peeved?’ asked a smiling Ruby, still clinging on to the American’s arm.
‘Of course not,’ Frances responded hotly. ‘Why should I be?’
In the presence of the good-looking American, Frances held back from telling her what Mrs Powell had said.
Ruby was not fooled. Looking her cousin in the eye she said, ‘Frances! I can tell, you know.’ She turned and smiled at Declan O’Malley. ‘My cousin has always worn her heart on her sleeve, even when she was a child.’
Declan’s expression was inscrutable. ‘But she’s not a child now. That much is obvious.’
Frances had been simmering at being referred to as a child. ‘That’s right. I’m not.’
Ruby apologised. ‘It’s just that you seem a bit off.’
‘I’m fine. I was just wondering whether red suits me.’
A small frown puckered Ruby’s forehead. ‘Of course it does. Actually, it suits you better than it suited me. Red is your colour. Don’t you think so, Declan, my love?’
Declan, a knowing smile on his lips, added his opinion. ‘I have to agree with Ruby. You look like a movie star. Perhaps I can have the pleasure of dancing with you later on?’ His very black pencil-thin eyebrows rose with quizzical amusement.
‘Perhaps you can,’ returned Frances, unable to stop herself from blushing.
His smile was warm and full of the confidence every American seemed to have in buckets.
‘I’m not the best dancer in the world, but I promise not to step on your toes.’
Wishing her face didn’t feel so hot, Frances tossed her head so that her hair fell around her shoulders in the seductive way it had earlier. ‘Oh, I don’t think you’re being honest, Declan. I bet you’re a really good dancer.’
‘I try to be.’
‘There!’ Ruby said in breathless exclamation. ‘My good friend Declan is in agreement with me. You look good in red. It’s been confirmed.’
Frances thanked them both, at the same time wondering that Ruby had called Declan a good friend, not ‘my sweetheart’, ‘my boyfriend’. Though she had referred to him as ‘my love’, earlier. But that was without meaning, Frances decided. Ruby tended to use the same endearments for customers, for everyone.
; Ruby flitted from one man to the next, never staying too long in the company of any of them. Except her driver, thought Frances. Johnnie Smith, the corporal from the Royal Corps of Transport, had been assigned to her by the Ministry of Food. It had been his task to drive her from one baking demonstration to another. Ruby had spent more time with him than any other man, even if only in a working capacity.
But Johnnie Smith had been taken prisoner when Singapore had fallen to Japanese invasion. If it hadn’t been for that, who knew what might have happened between the pair of them.
Frances said nothing until Ruby’s friend Declan was out of earshot on the other side of the hall ordering fresh drinks. He’d been cornered by George Gibbs, an old farmer who was out tonight dressed in his Sunday best which, unfortunately for him, smelled of mothballs and mouse dust. Frances took advantage of being alone with her cousin to ask about her mother.
‘Ruby. Do you remember my mother?’
Ruby frowned. ‘No. Not really.’
‘Do you know where she is?’
Ruby appeared agitated. At the same time she surveyed the dancers on the floor as though their steps were slightly out of sequence and needed a severe frown to bring them into line.
‘I’m not sure. You need to ask my dad.’
Ruby’s eyes continued to search the dance floor. Her lips were sucked inwards. ‘You mean Uncle Stan knows?’
Ruby shrugged and still didn’t meet her cousin’s look. ‘I don’t know. Not for sure. What’s brought this on?’
‘I would like to meet her.’
Ruby’s frown returned. ‘Meet her? After all this time?’
‘She’s my mother. I want to know what she was like.’
Seeing the desperate look in her cousin’s eyes, Ruby reconsidered. ‘Well, I suppose it’s only natural that you would want to meet up with her, but—’
The time seemed ripe to change the subject. ‘The spread looks good. If you hear what seems like thunder, don’t worry! It’s just my stomach rumbling!’
Ruby pretended to treat the matter in a light-hearted manner. At the same time, she eyed Frances with nervous apprehension. She had not expected her cousin to ask something like this. What with that and the way she’d seen Declan look at Frances, the night had not turned out exactly as she’d hoped. Turning the conversation to food was an acceptable alternative to discussing more serious matters.
‘We’re not allowing anyone to indulge until the interval or there’ll be nothing left. I think the apple cake will go well, don’t you? Did you know that dried apples are fetching nine pence per pound?’
Frances replied that she didn’t know. Quite frankly, she didn’t care, but if it took discussing the price of dried fruits to stop Ruby’s questions, then she would do it.
‘Dates are the cheapest. Seven pence a pound.’
Declan still hadn’t returned from fetching drinks for himself and Ruby.
Ruby carried on talking about the price of provisions until he’d signalled from the other side of the room, raising the two drinks he’d bought.
‘I’d better go.’ Ruby paused, her expression one of concern. ‘You will be all right, won’t you?’
Frances nodded. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
Ruby stroked her cousin’s arm in a gesture of sympathy. ‘We’ll talk about it later. Is that all right with you?’
Frances nodded again. Ruby was not to know that she had already made her mind up: she was going to find her mother. Nobody would stop her. She wouldn’t let them.
On the other side of the room, Declan handed Ruby her drink. ‘Does your cousin want something?’
Ruby lay her hand upon his arm. ‘With regard to your comments to my cousin and the way you looked at her, Declan, can I remind you that Frances is only fifteen years old?’
His smile gave nothing away. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Ruby was not fooled. Her jaw was set, her eyes hard. ‘Oh, yes, you do. You know very well. Leave her alone, Declan. She’s too young. Leave her alone or you’ll have my father to answer to. And me. I promise you, it will not be pleasant!’
CHAPTER THREE
Ruby was up early the following morning, preparing for a talk she was giving to St George Housewives Group. St George was a suburb of Bristol and thus most households were more dependent on shops rather than farmland for their food. With that in mind, she’d devised a pie made from vegetables and Spam. Tins of Spam were becoming quite commonplace on the shelves of grocery stores, thanks to the American allies.
She’d also devised a pie recipe using snoek – a variety of dried fish imported from South Africa.
The last items were loaded into the wickerwork hamper just as her father came in from the bakery.
‘I’m parched. Is that a fresh brew?’
Ruby reached for the pot. ‘I’ll pour one for you.’
‘I thought you had to be off?’ Stan Sweet knew his daughter’s schedule off by heart; in fact, he made a point of being well informed about all his family.
Ruby placed the cup of tea in front of him. ‘Dad. It’s our Frances. I wanted to warn you before she gets up.’
It was not yet six thirty. Stan Sweet regularly got up at five to bake bread. Ruby or Frances would take over once the bread was baked and cooling, ready to be transferred to the shop.
Stan looked at his daughter over the rim of his teacup. He took a big slurp. ‘What’s wrong?’
Ruby took a deep breath. ‘She wants to find her mother.’
Slowly and thoughtfully, her father placed his cup back into its saucer. For a moment, he was totally silent as he mulled over what Ruby had said.
‘That’s bad news. Come to that, her mother was always bad news.’
‘I told her I had no idea where her mother was. I told her to ask you.’
Still silent, eyes downcast, Stan nodded in his usual thoughtful way. ‘I suppose the day had to come.’
Ruby eyed her father, wondering when it was that he’d began to look old, when his hair had started thinning, when the loose skin of his jowls had become so wrinkled.
She hesitated before finally asking whether he really did know the whereabouts of Mildred Sweet, Frances’s mother.
‘Yes. I do.’
A wary look came to Ruby’s face.
Pushing his teacup away, Stan asked, ‘Why now? She’s never shown much interest before.’
Ruby shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but as you’ve just said, the day was bound to come.’
Her father got up from his chair. ‘Leave it with me. Say nothing about this until I’ve thought it over.’
Ruby nodded, then glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go. Will you check the post for me? Just in case there’s a letter … or something.’
Her father’s smile was sad but understanding. He knew his daughter was asking him to check if there was anything from Johnnie Smith. Ruby checked every day, hardly giving the mail a chance to fall through the letterbox before pouncing on it. So far, in all this time, there’d been nothing.
Later in the morning, leaving Frances to run the shop, Stan and his grandson Charlie made their way to St Anne’s church.
The weather was dull and overcast, droplets of rain sprinkling from bushes each time the north wind blew. Once they were in the churchyard, Stan used both hands to draw his coat collar up around his neck.
Finding he was no longer constrained by his grandfather’s firm grip, Charlie broke into a tottering run, gleefully laughing as twigs and leaves blew across his path.
Stan headed for his wife’s grave, pleased to see that Michaelmas daisies were in flower. As was his habit, he settled down beside his wife’s headstone, just as he might if she’d been lying in the marriage bed they’d shared for such a few short years.
This was where he came to speak his mind, gather his thoughts and ask questions he wouldn’t voice to anyone else – even to his good friend Bettina Hicks.
He called out to Charlie not to wander off before voicing what was in his mind.
‘Sarah. The war goes on. All our family are safe and sound, at least for the present. Mary rang me yesterday from Lincolnshire to say that Michael is doing well and that it won’t be long before he’s home and maybe flying again. I get the impression she’s hoping the war will be over before that time comes. I can’t say I blame her. Anyway, I think she’d like him to be there when the baby is born, any day now.’
He looked up to see Charlie chasing a baby rabbit round and round a stone guardian angel.
‘You won’t catch him, Charlie,’ Stan called out.
Charlie stood still, turned and regarded his grandfather with a cheeky grin, his cheeks pink and wisps of black curly hair escaping from beneath his balaclava.
‘Bunz,’ Charlie shouted, pointing to where the baby rabbit had been. ‘Gone,’ he said on looking back to the bare spot.
‘It’s not Bunz,’ Stan corrected him. Bunz was Charlie’s favourite toy. ‘It’s a real one.’
His grandson looked quite mystified. ‘Bunz,’ he said again, more emphatically this time.
Stan chuckled as he shook his head. ‘My, my, Sarah. If only you were here. If only you could see our first grandchild.’ He fell to silence as a thought hit him. ‘If only his parents could have too.’
His son Charlie, after whom the little boy had been named, had been lost at sea, thanks to an enemy torpedo. Gilda, the boy’s mother, widow of a man who had died in a death camp in Nazi Germany, had been killed in a bombing raid on London. Both events had saddened the whole family, but at least they had young Charlie, a little boy born out of wedlock but conceived from love.
Stan focused on his wife’s name carved on the headstone. A frown furrowed his brow. ‘Young Frances has asked about her mother. She wants to meet her. She hasn’t asked me as yet, but she told our Ruby. Ruby told her she must ask me, that I’m the only one likely to have her mother’s address.’
Stan rubbed his hands together, feeling their powdery roughness. Baking was not quite the soft-handed option that people tended to think. Flour could roughen hands; in fact, flour could be downright flammable.