Home Sweet Home

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘I might not want great things. I might be quite happy with little things,’ she said quite testily. Not that Andrew seemed to notice. He had a knack of not hearing anything hostile to his attentions, or at least that was the way it seemed to her.

  Mrs Kepple was a welcome diversion. She was very appreciative of the talk.

  ‘How lovely of you to say so,’ said Ruby.

  Andrew looked quite astounded when she handed him the tea towel and the plate she’d been wiping. There was a bowlful of washing up still to do, enough to keep him out of her hair for a while.

  ‘Not that it weren’t something that I didn’t already know,’ stated Mrs Kepple, her head nodding in time with her words.

  Ruby’s attention kept being drawn to the feather fluttering like a trapped blackbird with each nod of Mrs Kepple’s head.

  ‘Baking is all very well, my dear, but it’s the main courses I concentrate on. I have my lodgers to think about, tough men some of them doing tough jobs. And ladies, of course, but even ladies work in factories nowadays.’

  ‘Of course they do.’ Ruby tried to say more, but when Mrs Kepple was holding forth, even Churchill couldn’t have got a word in edgeways.

  ‘It’s this snoek that’s a challenge,’ said Mrs Kepple. ‘Not a bad fish, I dare say, but it does need a little bit of something to make it more tasty. I add tripe and onions myself.’

  ‘Really? How interesting.’

  The great thing about living in the country was that fresh food, although in short supply, was still obtainable. Not for them the long queues for fresh produce as were seen in the city.

  ‘I add just a little marge and a drop of milk. The fish and the tripe add the rest.’

  To Ruby’s ears it sounded revolting, but she smiled and intimated that she would love the recipe if she’d like to send it to her sometime – and instantly regretted it.

  ‘No need. I’ve got it here.’

  Mrs Kepple pulled out a crumpled envelope from her pocket. Unfolding it took some time, the envelope having been folded numerous times until it was no more than two inches square.

  Unseen by Mrs Kepple, Ruby slipped a sidelong smile at Frances. Frances merely grimaced and pulled a long-suffering face.

  ‘There you are,’ exclaimed Mrs Kepple once the scribbled recipe was in view. ‘It’s all yours to do with as you please.’

  Hesitant but smiling, Ruby took the proffered scrap of paper. ‘Thank you. I’m sure it will come in useful.’

  ‘I bet the little’un ’ere will love it. Yours, is he?’

  Ruby shook her head. ‘No. He’s my nephew, and the little girl is my niece – Frances’s baby, in fact.’

  Smiling affectionately, Mrs Kepple ruffled Charlie’s dark curls and cooed over little Daisy, tactfully not asking if Frances was married.

  ‘Charlie is my brother’s son,’ Ruby explained. ‘Both his parents are dead. My brother’s ship was torpedoed and Charlie’s mother was killed in a bombing raid on London.’

  ‘That’s terrible, but that’s war for you. But there you are. Come to think of it, I’ve got a mother and baby staying with me too. She was staying with her grandmother over the Welsh side of the Severn, but she’s come ’ere to wait for the baby’s father to come home. Baby is as good as gold – not a peep out of it. Not sure whether they’re married or not,’ she said, her voice low and secretive. ‘But there. Never mind. Live and let live, I always say. Is your baby’s father away fighting?’ she asked Frances.

  ‘Yes. But he will be back soon,’ Frances said defiantly. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit that Mrs Kepple’s reference to the young woman staying with her was unsettling. Declan had told her he loved her. Of course he would come back.

  Charlie began rubbing his eyes, the usual prelude to tiredness. As if that wasn’t enough, Daisy began to cry.

  ‘Time we were going. They’re both tired,’ said Frances. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  Mrs Kepple remained chirpy. ‘Tell you what, me dear. How about you come and have a cup of tea with me? I can find the little boy a slice of jam tart.’ She bent down so her cheerful face was level with that of Charlie. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  Charlie, one fist still clenched at the corner of his right eye, gave a cautious nod. He didn’t know who this cherry-faced woman was, but she had mentioned something about a jam tart. Charlie loved jam.

  Although she too was invited, Ruby declined the offer, citing the fact that she had to clear up. She also wanted to stress to Andrew once and for all that she wasn’t interested in him and neither was she interested in transferring to London.

  ‘You go,’ she said to Frances. ‘I’ll keep Daisy with me. She’s not due for a feed yet, but Charlie is tired and hungry. He’s only a small boy with short legs, after all.’

  ‘And a very deep stomach,’ Frances added with a grin.

  Resigned to yet again entering Mrs Kepple’s house, and feeling a little tired herself, Frances accompanied Mrs Kepple to the tall terraced house with the bay window.

  An aspidistra now occupied prime position in the front window, replacing the necessity for net curtains.

  ‘All living things need light,’ Mrs Kepple had pronounced. Frances had presumed she meant just plants, though on reflection decided that people needed light too. Nobody liked winter because it was dark. Everyone preferred lighter nights so it stood to reason they also preferred lighter rooms.

  ‘I expect Miriam will be home too,’ said Mrs Kepple.

  ‘Miriam?’

  ‘Yes. That’s her name. Mrs Miriam Charles.’

  Frances felt a grabbing feeling inside, what Ada Perkins would call a premonition.

  Mrs Kepple prattled on with what she knew about Mrs Charles. The young woman had been living with her grandmother in the Forest of Dean. Her name was Miriam and she had a child. More tellingly, she’d said that the young woman’s name was Mrs Miriam Charles.

  A clammy feeling erupted on her forehead and the hairs on the back of her neck pricked upright. Miriam. A grandmother in the Forest of Dean, a baby and the name Charles. Her brother’s name. Or was there really a Mr Charles?

  She swiped her free hand across her forehead. It came back damp with perspiration.

  Mrs Kepple noticed that something was wrong. ‘Are you all right, dearie?’

  Frances managed a reassuring smile. ‘A little dizzy spell, though nothing to worry about. It’s gone now.’

  The outer door was wide open. The inner door, with its upper panel of jewel-like blue and red glass, was closed. There would be no need to unlock it. Mrs Kepple pushed it open.

  Frances stared straight ahead as she entered the familiar house, her hand firmly grasping Charlie’s.

  Frances had not suspected that when Miriam had left her grandmother’s home, she had come to Bristol. To her knowledge, Ada had not written to Uncle Stan, and she probably would have done, just to keep him informed. Nobody would have known whether Ada Perkins, Miriam’s grandmother, had written to Miriam’s mother. Ada’s daughter, Gertrude, had washed her hands of her daughter, a fact she retold to everyone in the village.

  ‘My daughter is a slut,’ she’d told them.

  She’d not gone into further detail but there had been a rumour that Miriam had got pregnant by a visiting Methodist minister. Sometime later she disappeared then reappeared in the village with no sign of being pregnant. And now she was here? With a baby? Frances could hardly believe it.

  Mrs Kepple began taking off her hat and coat on her way to the kitchen. Frances followed, Charlie just behind her asking when he was likely to get his jam tart.

  His shrill little voice rang out along the passageway with its bumpy floors and scattered rugs. ‘Strawberry jam or plum jam?’

  ‘Plum,’ exclaimed Mrs Kepple, both arms raised in the process of taking off her hat. ‘Take a seat, dearie. Oh, look. The kettle’s already on. I expect Miriam saw us coming. Hang on and I’ll give her a shout.’

  Her small feet padded over the
scattered rugs, the loose floorboards creaking with each step. Frances watched her go, a small gripe in her stomach.

  ‘Charlie have more?’

  Charlie wasn’t exactly asking for another jam tart, but actively taking one from the plate on the table.

  ‘You already have,’ Frances said with a sense of defeat. Charlie had a habit of taking before asking. She presumed he would grow out of it, though what did it matter if he didn’t?

  Mrs Kepple was already on her way back along the passageway, a cheery smile on her face. ‘She’s put the baby down for a sleep. She’ll be down shortly.’

  The lid on the kettle began to lift with the pressure of the steam rising upwards. A stream of it puffed from the long spout. Frances offered to make it. ‘You put your feet up. And take your coat off.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Kepple, looking down at the front of her coat. ‘I didn’t realise I still had it on.’

  Frances’s heart began to thud at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs and along the passageway.

  The young woman in the doorway appeared dumbstruck. ‘Frances!’

  Miriam’s face was more animated than Frances had ever seen it. Once she’d got over the initial shock, she gave Frances a hug and tousled Charlie’s shock of black hair.

  ‘You are so like your daddy,’ she said to him, and Frances noticed a wistful look in her eyes.

  For his part, Charlie looked up at her with wary amazement. He was too young to remember her as the lady who’d taken him from his pushchair and down into the woods at California Farm. None of the family now believed that he’d simply wandered off. Miriam’s behaviour both at that time and after had made them believe otherwise.

  ‘I bet you didn’t know I’d left the forest,’ Miriam exclaimed, her staring eyes touched with a brilliance that wasn’t quite sane.

  Frances was unnerved. Her tone was sceptical. ‘No. I didn’t even know you were married.’

  ‘He’s in the navy! He’s a sailor! Just like Charlie was.’

  ‘A merchant seaman? Like Charlie?’

  ‘That’s right. Not a sailor, a merchant seaman. That’s it.’

  ‘Would anyone else like a jam tart?’ Mrs Kepple poured the tea and pushed the plate of jam tarts into the middle of the table. Charlie helped himself to a third one. Frances apologised and told him to put it back. Her attention kept going back to Miriam. Something was very wrong here. She didn’t seem sure whether her husband was a sailor or a merchant seaman – and there was definitely a difference. Perhaps she didn’t know who the father was.

  Mrs Kepple’s voice regarding Charlie and the jam tarts interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Don’t worry, me dear. He’s welcome to it. I got a nice tin of jam from my shopkeeper. It had no label on it so he said I had to take pot luck. I tell you, I was lucky to get it. Once the word got round, the queue was a mile long!’

  She chuckled amiably and so did Charlie, his face beaming with pleasure.

  Although she smiled and talked pleasantly to Miriam, Frances couldn’t shift the feeling of unease. She felt extremely uncomfortable. There was something brittle about Miriam’s brightness, every so often her gaze shifting away, anywhere but looking at Frances. It was as though all that she was saying had been carefully rehearsed, like the words and actions in a play. Not real but a façade, like the grim old buildings with nothing behind them.

  Hiding her concerns, Frances adopted a happy face. ‘So what’s your baby’s name?’

  ‘Charlotte Louise Charles. Her father’s name is Charles. Not Charles Charles,’ she said with a light laugh. ‘His name is Deacon Charles.’

  ‘Oh. That’s nice.’

  Frances didn’t think it was nice at all. Charlotte was the female form of Charles and it just seemed too much of a coincidence that Miriam’s husband’s name was Deacon Charles. Not only was it her dead cousin’s name, as well as that of his son, but she’d said that his first name was Deacon.

  ‘So where did you meet him, this Deacon Charles?’

  ‘Coleford. I got a job there in a shop and his family lived nearby.’

  Frances dipped her head to her tea, sipping it as she thought it through. The only Deacon she knew on the other side of the Severn Bridge had been her favourite boy from the moment she’d moved there. Could Miriam really have married him? She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t recall whether his surname had been Charles. She certainly didn’t think so.

  ‘So where is he at present?’

  ‘Here. In Bristol. Or at least he will be shortly. That’s why I’m here. I’m waiting for the war to end and him to come home. It won’t be long now. I’m sure it won’t.’ Her eyes were oddly bright, her voice brisk.

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ returned Frances.

  ‘I reckon so,’ said Mrs Kepple, who was now busily stirring a saucepan. Whatever was in the saucepan smelled extremely appetising.

  Under the pretence of sipping tea, Frances studied Miriam’s appearance. She was wearing the same old black coat she’d used to wear when she accompanied her mother to church. Did her mother know about the marriage and the baby? Somehow she doubted it. Somehow she couldn’t believe that Miriam was married or had a baby. Curiosity scratched at her mind. Miriam. A baby. A husband. It was the existence of the baby that intrigued her most of all.

  ‘I’ve got a baby too. Her name’s Daisy. Her father’s American.’

  ‘Oh really,’ said Miriam, all unsuspecting.

  ‘Do you think I could take a peep at your baby? I promise not to wake her.’

  Miriam’s expression was hesitant, as though frozen in a sudden blast of cold air. Frances presumed she would say no. She was proved wrong.

  ‘Yes. Of course you can. But we’ll have to be quiet and Charlie will have to stay down here. I don’t want him to wake her.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Mrs Kepple immediately offered to keep an eye on Charlie while the two young women headed for the stairs that were half-hidden behind a draped velvet curtain that Mrs Kepple had put there to keep the draught from coming down.

  Frances recognised Miriam’s room as being the same one she had occupied when she’d stayed here.

  The baby was sound asleep, tucked up in a blanket on the bed. Her face was sickly pale, the lips almost waxen.

  Sickening fear closed like a cold fist around Frances’s heart. Miriam hovered behind her, close to her shoulder.

  Miriam gave a little laugh. ‘She’s always asleep. Never a murmur.’

  Frances moved slowly, her legs unsteady. Suddenly it seemed such a long way to the bedroom door, but she had to make it. She had to raise the alarm. The baby was dead.

  ‘I’d better see how Charlie is before he eats any more of Mrs Kepple’s jam tarts.’ She kept her voice as steady as she could.

  Seemingly oblivious to the true state of her baby, Miriam hung over the bundle, her fingers tucking the blanket more firmly around the ashen face. ‘I would let Charlie see my baby, but she needs her sleep.’

  The stairs seemed to loom up to meet her as Frances stumbled swiftly down them. Mrs Kepple was waiting at the bottom, wiping the jam from Charlie’s sticky fingers.

  ‘Mrs Kepple, have you ever seen Miriam’s baby? Have you held her?’

  Mrs Kepple frowned. ‘No, Miriam seems quite particular, keeps herself to herself.’

  Frances took a deep breath and relayed her fears. ‘It’s dead!’

  Mrs Kepple looked dumbfounded. ‘You’re sure?’

  Frances couldn’t stop shaking. ‘She always wanted a baby.’

  Mrs Kepple touched her hand. ‘Let me go up and take a look. I’ll insist this time. Tell you what: I’ve just made a cuppa so why don’t you sit down with a brew and I’ll take one up to her.’

  Mrs Kepple sounded incredibly calm, though her hand shook a little.

  Frances sat there trying not to feel nauseous. A dead baby! Lifeless!

  Mrs Kepple came back down soon after with a tight smile on her face.

&nbs
p; ‘Don’t worry, dear. It’s not a real baby. It’s a doll.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor thing. Fancy playing pretend at her age.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  October 1945

  While Charlie chased the last lingering butterflies and picked wild flowers, Stan Sweet knelt beside his wife’s grave. He didn’t come here so often nowadays, what with Ruby being so busy, little Daisy and his young grandson making demands on the time of all of them. But today he felt more elated than he’d felt for a long time.

  Resting his clasped hands on his knee, almost as though he were praying, he began telling Sarah the great news.

  ‘So the war is finally over. The Japanese have surrendered. They’ve paid a terrible price for entering the war, but I’ll leave the whys and the wherefores to the historians. The thing that causes my heart to soar is that Johnnie Smith has been released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He wrote to our Ruby and she’s going down to meet him.’

  Swallowing the lump of emotion rising in his throat, he raised his eyes, blinking away the tears as he regarded the branches of old trees creaking in the breeze. Like my joints, he thought to himself.

  On clearing his throat, he put his thoughts into words, words he had not said to Ruby.

  ‘I did think for a while that she was going to marry one of her Polish pilots, but she didn’t. Still, I’m glad she didn’t. If she had, it would have meant her going with him when he went back to his own country. I don’t think I would have been able to stand that. As it is …’ He smiled, his chest seeming to swell with great joy as well as a lungful of fresh air. ‘We weren’t sure Johnnie was still alive. During all that time he was imprisoned, we only received one card from him. I suspect he won’t be in the best of health. Our Ruby knows that, but she’s a different girl from the one she was when this war began. I know she’ll cope, no matter how bad he is.’

  Masses of people had gathered to watch the fifteen-thousand-ton ship Chetril berth at Southampton. She had sailed all the way from Rangoon, in India, through the Suez Canal into Cairo, Malta, Lisbon and finally Southampton.

  A breathless excitement hung in the air, but also anticipation. Although the men coming home had received medical attention back in Rangoon, rumours were rife that their health had been badly affected by the long years of imprisonment and that starvation, brutality and disease had all taken their toll.