by Pam Weaver
For the past couple of months, Bonnie had thrown herself into her work. Every test she had, she came top of the class. Her folder work was second to none and she had high marks for her practical work as well. The girls were puzzled by her paleness when she’d returned from London, but they had been told she’d suffered a sudden bereavement in the family. Only Matron and Dinah knew it was Shirley’s father. Because of the depth of Bonnie’s grief, everyone else was content to second-guess it was her mother. After all Bonnie was already a widow.
Everyone was very kind, though Shirley looked a little bewildered at times, especially when her mother let a tear or two escape while she was with her. The little girl would point at her tears and then pull her mother’s hair and open her mouth wide as if to ‘eat’ her. Young as she was, she understood her mother was upset. Their bond grew stronger and stronger.
Every time Bonnie spoke to Dinah on the telephone, Dinah begged Bonnie to let her talk to her mother but Bonnie couldn’t face the possible rejection. Not yet.
Bonnie took Shirley to Dinah’s flat in time for her first birthday. Dinah put on a tea and some of her theatrical friends came to the party. Bonnie was dreading seeing John again but in the end it was all right. It was plainly obvious he knew nothing about his roots, or that they were connected, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell him.
Shirley was dressed in a pretty pink dress with pink and white smocking. She loved being the centre of attention and everybody thought she was adorable. John was a gifted pianist and singer. When his fingers danced over the keyboard, her heart fluttered a little for her mother. John’s way of playing was so like hers and when Shirley heard him playing she laughed and clapped her podgy little hands.
‘Why won’t you go back to Worthing?’ Dinah said as they cleared up the aftermath of the party. Shirley was playing with building blocks with John. ‘Your mother would love her to bits.’
Bonnie shook her head. ‘How can I after all this time? I don’t want to hurt her again.’
‘You do know she spent days on end at the station looking for you?’
Bonnie looked away. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said brokenly. ‘I must have hurt her deeply. I can’t do it again.’
‘Tell me,’ said Dinah. ‘If Shirley went away for a couple of years and then you could have her back, no questions asked, would you refuse to have her?’
‘That’s a bit below the belt,’ said Bonnie.
‘Is it?’ said Dinah. ‘You were your mother’s little baby once.’
Bonnie put the glass she was drying back into the cupboard. ‘I’ll think about it.’
Twenty-Four
Emilio hadn’t answered Rita’s letters so she had come home for the weekend. She wanted to ask Salvatore where he was. Her mother was still at Granny’s and not likely to be home for a while. It was strange being in the house all alone. Snowy had popped by to check up on her on Saturday morning. Rita was still in bed.
‘Your mother wrote to me this week,’ said Snowy. ‘I’m afraid it’s not good news. You know your grandmother has cancer, don’t you? I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time and your mother wants to stay up there until the end.’
Rita nodded her head sleepily and did her best to stifle the yawn that was coming. She wasn’t very fond of her grandmother. She hadn’t seen her very often as a child. The distance between them hadn’t helped, but she’d sent a knitted scarf every Christmas and she’d written the occasional letter. Rita’s mother worked hard to please the old lady, sending her parcels and letters very regularly, but there was clearly something between them, something unspoken but large enough to affect their relationship.
Rita had thanked Snowy and promised to come for a meal later in the day. She would head over that way once she’d seen Salvatore.
Rita had been surprised that she’d enjoyed doing the shorthand and typing course as much as she did. The course itself wasn’t exactly scintillating, but the girls training with her were brilliant. They all had so many laughs together. Most weekday evenings were taken up with practice homework but at the weekends she was able to go dancing. Brighton was such a lively place compared to Worthing and now that the war was well and truly over, the bright lights beckoned every young girl to the sea front and the dance halls where she could dance the night away with the best-looking boys in town.
Rita’s favourite places were the two piers, which had both reopened the year before. As with Worthing’s pier, in 1940 the council had removed large chunks to hamper enemy invasion, but as soon as hostilities were at an end, the piers were repaired in time for the holiday season. The West Pier was a little more grand than the Palace Pier but both had their charms. If she and her friends fancied kiss-me-quick hats and candyfloss, the Palace Pier was the place to be, while the theatre on the West Pier had some really good shows. She wrote to Dinah, now studying at RADA, and told her all about them, adding that they weren’t a patch on the Worthing Musical Comedy Shows.
Rita was never short of offers from good-looking young men, to her great surprise. She’d had several letters from Bob. He was kind and he was funny, so she enjoyed reading them again and again, but her heart was already given to Emilio. He was her first thought in the morning and her last at night, which was why she was so anxious that she hadn’t heard from him.
The Railway Café was buzzing when she walked in, but even though they were rushed off their feet, Salvatore threw his arms out in his usual exuberant way and kissed Rita on both cheeks.
‘Sit, sit,’ he begged. ‘I just serve and then we talk.’ He went to the hatch and called, ‘Mama, Rita is here.’
Liliana, all pink and flustered, came out of the kitchen a few minutes later, a pastry in one hand and a coffee in the other. She put them in front of Rita and shook her head as Rita reached for her purse. ‘Sit,’ she said repeating Salvatore’s instruction. ‘Eat. Enjoy. We talk later.’
It was more than an hour before they could take a quick break to talk to Rita. First they wanted to know how her grandmother was, and when Grace would be coming home and then they bombarded her with questions. What was the course like? Had she made new friends? What were the lodgings like? Rita answered everything with as much attention to detail as she could and eventually there came the lull in conversation she’d been looking for.
‘I’ve been writing to Emilio,’ she ventured as Salvatore and Liliana sat opposite her beaming as proudly as any parent, ‘but he doesn’t reply to my letters.’
She saw the colour drain from Liliana’s face as she stood up and excused herself. ‘I needed in the kitchen.’
Salvatore picked at a loose thread on his apron. ‘Emilio, he stay with friend.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘He fine,’ said Salvatore.
‘It’s just that Liliana …’ Rita began anxiously.
‘She angry that he not say he was going,’ said Salvatore quickly.
Rita breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Any news of Jeremy?’ Rita continued. ‘We wrote all the time when he was doing his basic training but he forgot to tell me where his next posting would be.’
Salvatore shot out his lip and shook his head. ‘Emilio, he back after Christmas,’ he said giving her a long hard stare. ‘You come back then, Rita. All Emilio needs is the love of a good woman.’
Rita blushed. Christmas was a long way away. ‘Can you give me his address?’
‘He travel around,’ said Salvatore avoiding her eye. ‘You send here. I post for you.’
The customers were beginning to build again and the new help behind the counter was struggling to cope. ‘I go,’ Salvatore apologised.
‘Of course,’ said Rita finishing the last of her coffee. ‘I’m on my way to Mum’s friend’s for tea anyway.’
By the time July came, Bonnie and Dinah had been meeting on a regular basis.
Bonnie usually arranged to see Cook and Dora first and then to meet Dinah to have tea or a stroll in Hyde Park. It came as a pleasant surprise when Dinah suggested that she a
nd Shirley join her for a weekend break.
‘I have a friend who has a cottage in the country,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to a real holiday.’
‘I’m not sure it would be much of a holiday with Shirley around,’ Bonnie laughed. ‘She’s such a live wire these days.’
‘Remind me again?’ said Dinah. ‘How old is she?’
‘Fifteen months,’ said Bonnie. ‘She’s got four teeth and she’s toddling, so she’s in to everything.’
‘Oh do come,’ said Dinah. ‘She’s such a poppet and the place is huge. The garden goes on for ever.’
In the end Bonnie relented. They made arrangements to pick her up by car early Friday evening and said they would be back late Sunday afternoon. ‘I would stay longer,’ Dinah apologised, ‘but I have rehearsals first thing Monday morning and I’ll never get up in time if I don’t have a good night’s sleep.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Bonnie. ‘I have to start work at seven in the morning myself.’
Dinah shuddered. ‘Ghastly hour. Whoever invented it wants shooting.’
The cottage was more like a house. It was set deep in the heart of the unspoiled Kent countryside. Although the nursery backed onto Richmond Park and had its own private gate, somehow Bonnie never lost the feeling that she was in an enclosed space. Here, in Kent, she was able to stand in the back garden and look across the county for miles.
Shirley loved toddling around the garden. She picked up stones, pointed out the flowers saying, ‘’ook, ’ook …’ and ate dirt. Bonnie kept a very close eye on her, but she even managed the three little steps that led to a lower garden by herself. Shirley soon had the adults playing ‘boo!’ by the dustbins and her little giggle was highly infectious.
There were three others in the party. Mick and Clare spent most of the weekend in their bedroom, only emerging for meals or the occasional walk. They were passionately in love and to start with they hardly seemed to notice anyone else, certainly not Shirley. The other person was John Finley.
On Saturday, Bonnie walked into the village with Shirley in the pushchair. Mick and Clare hadn’t yet emerged from the night before while Dinah and John were sitting in the garden learning their lines.
Bonnie was enjoying herself. She and Shirley stopped in a tea room for drinks and watched the world go by.
‘She’s such a good little girl,’ the waitress remarked as Bonnie paid the bill. Shirley was already winning hearts as she waved, ‘Bye, bye’, and smiled at the remaining customers.
When she got back to the cottage, Shirley was asleep. Bonnie left the pushchair round the back and tiptoed away. They had decided at breakfast that they would have bread, cheese and pickles for lunch, so she set about preparing it. Dinah had dozed off in her chair and she could hear laughter from upstairs.
‘Did you enjoy your walk?’ The sound of John’s voice made her jump.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she smiled.
‘I’ll get the wine,’ he said.
She found a lettuce and a few tomatoes in the refrigerator and washed them.
‘We make a great team,’ he said coming back with a bottle of wine.
‘Do you have a family?’ She did her best to sound casual and willed her cheeks not to go red.
‘Just me and my parents. And you?’
‘I have a mother and a sister. My father was killed in the D-Day landings.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What does your father do?’
‘He owns a knitwear factory, among other things,’ said John. ‘He wants me to take over from him, but it’s really not for me, I’m afraid.’
‘He must be upset.’
‘Very.’
She smiled. She’d wanted to ask more pertinent questions including, Are you adopted?, but she had backed herself into a corner. There was no way she could say that without raising suspicion and she didn’t want to do that. Not yet.
‘I hear you’re a bit of a pioneer in the nursery,’ he said putting wine glasses onto the tray she had already prepared.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ she chuckled. ‘It feels more like darned hard work.’
There was a small silence and then he said, ‘I was sorry to hear about your man.’ She looked up sharply. ‘Dinah told me. Sorry, but we made up our minds from the word go not to keep secrets from each other.’
‘I like that,’ said Bonnie, thinking about her own mother. ‘We should all be open and honest.’
‘He was found in my father’s old factory, you know,’ said John. ‘Odd, isn’t it?’
A distant memory nudged her mind. What was it George had said about John’s father? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but it felt important. John picked up the tray and they went outside.
‘Oh darling, how marvellous,’ Dinah cried as John put the tray onto the all weathers table.
‘I can’t take all the credit,’ said John stooping to give her a kiss. ‘Bonnie helped me a bit.’
Behind his back Bonnie grinned and Dinah winked at her. ‘I’m so glad you both get on,’ she said. ‘You’re my two most favourite people in the world.’
‘Of course we do,’ said John, putting his hand to his forehead in a dramatic gesture. ‘We are such a comfort to each other in this time of trial.’
Dinah hit his arm playfully. ‘Don’t tease me. I mean it.’
Shirley woke up and Bonnie left them to see to her child. She felt a bit of a gooseberry but she didn’t mind too much. It was good to see Dinah so happy after all the heartbreak of losing her husband so young.
As Bonnie changed Shirley’s nappy inside, she began to think about George again. She wished she had a photograph of him. Sometimes she struggled to remember what he looked like, but then she tickled Shirley’s bare tummy and in her giggly face, she saw him there.
‘Don’t let him get too close to you …’ That’s what George had said about Finley, but what did it mean?
The whole day was wonderfully relaxing. Dinah and John took it in turns to amuse Shirley and of course she lapped up the extra attention.
‘I’ve never had Shirley christened,’ she said. ‘If I do, will you two be her godparents?’
‘We’d love to, wouldn’t we, John?’ cried Dinah en-thusiastically.
‘Rather,’ said John. Shirley was sitting on his lap. He kissed her blonde curls and when she looked up at him he said, ‘You’d like to have an Uncle John, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?’
Shirley stared at him for a few seconds and then reached up and tweaked his nose, making everybody laugh. Bonnie watched them with pleasure. Uncle John in more ways than one, she thought.
Twenty-Five
The train pulled into the station four minutes late. Even before it came to a halt, several passengers had leaned out of their carriage windows and turned the outside handle to open the door. The train was made up of individual carriages and most had two or three passengers, with the exception of first class.
Oswald George gathered his things with a heavy heart. As the train came to a stop, a deep sense of foreboding descended upon him. As he alighted from the carriage, the chilly English weather hit him once again. Manny Hart was calling, ‘Worthing, this is Worthing.’
A porter came up to him. ‘Carry your bags, sir?’
Oswald nodded and the man lifted his heavy leather suitcase with ease. ‘Taxi is it, sir?’
Oswald nodded again and followed him to the exit. The bleak windswept platform matched his mood. How he longed to be back under the warmth of the South African sun. Ensconced in the taxi, Oswald gave the porter a sixpenny bit once the case was safely stowed inside.
‘Where to, guv?’
‘The Chatsworth Hotel,’ said Oswald, ‘and then I want you to wait for me. I want to go on to Worthing police station.’
The drive wasn’t far and he liked what little he saw of the town. There weren’t many people about, probably because of the weather. Most were hunched under umbrellas or keeping under
the large blue blinds pulled down in front of almost every shop which sheltered shoppers from the rain. The taxi turned by the pier where the Christmas panto was in full swing and then along the sea front for a short while. His attention was caught by the fishing boats on the beach, their bright triangular flags tugging at the long poles which secured them. He spotted a blackboard with ‘Fresh fish for sale’, but the rain had made the chalk run and there was no sign of customers. As his taxi turned the corner, he passed a few people, huddled under a shelter, looking anxiously up the street as they waited for the bus. The taxi drew up and the doorman called for a young boy who ran down the steps to take his bags.
‘Will you be staying long, sir?’ the receptionist enquired as he checked in.
Oswald shrugged. ‘Not sure.’
At the police station he was met by the newly promoted Detective Sergeant Nyman, who, immediately after he had introduced himself, took him into an interview room. The room was windowless and smelled stale. Oswald was trembling as he lit a cigarette and sat down. The DS had followed him in and put a brown folder onto the table between them.
‘I’ll get straight to the point, sir,’ said Nyman. ‘I don’t suppose you want me to keep you in suspense.’
He laid a photograph on the table and turned it around so that the subject was facing Oswald. Oswald took a deep breath and looked down but he could not prevent a sound of anguish escaping his lips. He screwed up his eyes and began to rock slightly. Then he took a long drag of the cigarette and looked up at the ceiling. He could feel the tears filling his eyes and his nose. He swallowed hard. When he looked back at Nyman, out of respect for him the detective sergeant had turned the picture over and was looking away. Oswald fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and blew his nose noisily. He cleared his throat and said the words he wished with all his heart he didn’t have to say. ‘Yes, that’s my son. That’s George.’