by Joan Lingard
Willa nodded.
‘His dad must think the world of him.’
The tram, completing its run down Lothian Road, turned into the west end of Princes Street. The woman got off, waving goodbye to Malcolm, who returned the gesture by flapping his wrist up and down.
Willa caught hold of his hand and kissed the palm, making him giggle.
‘We’ll be all right, wee one, don’t you worry. We’ll be together. And Richard will look after us. You’ll love Richard.’
He would be waiting for them in Waverley Station; she did not doubt that. She would never doubt Richard’s word. He, too, would have left a note on the kitchen table. He’d said that he would have told his mother straight out but he feared she might come to the station and make a scene and upset Willa. Willa believed that she would, given the opportunity. Arabella Fitzwilliam would not let go of her son lightly. She would denounce Willa, tell her that she was ruining his life, denying him the right to finish his education, burdening him with a woman and a child to keep when he had not the means to do so. She would not help them: Willa foresaw that. She would hope that struggling to survive in a dismal flat in London might bring them to their senses. They’d be poor. The little bit of money Richard had would soon run out.
Willa had a vision of their life: the flat like those she’d seen for letting in Edinburgh, skimpy, evil-smelling, in a mean back street; Richard gone all day, labouring as a clerk, doing mindless work for a miserable salary, returning red-eyed and tired, to find a grumpy baby cutting teeth; herself frustrated from struggling to fill long empty hours, knowing that no one would ring the doorbell and come into the kitchen ready for a cup of tea and a chat and liven up the place with a burst of laughter. They would be isolated, the three of them. Short of money, doing their best to stay alive, with the odds stacked against them, pulled people down. She’d seen it at first hand. Richard had not. And then there would be Tommy. He wouldn’t take it sitting down. He’d come after them. She’d be afraid to go out. He might get extra leave, for compassionate reasons. Poor Tommy, imagine, him away at sea serving king and country and his wife does a runner taking his kid! She must be a bad lot.
‘Next stop Waverley!’ called the conductor.
The tram came to a stop.
Willa got up, putting Malcolm back on her hip. She stepped down onto the island and the conductor passed the bag over to her, telling her to mind how she went.
While they were waiting for the road to clear Malcolm saw something on the ground that interested him and lurched suddenly to the side to try to reach for it, causing her to wrench her shoulder. She gasped with the sudden pain and dropped the bag. He was no lightweight. A handful, Elma called him. Willa could not argue with that. If only she could carry him in the palm of her hand!
She lifted the bag and dodging a bicycle crossed the road to the top of the Waverley steps. A snell wind came swirling up around her ankles. It was a windy place this, where the warm air from the station rose to meet the cold of the street. She shivered. She stood staring into space, undisturbed by Malcolm, who himself had become still.
She just could not do it.
It would be too difficult.
For everyone.
She put her back to the steps. A tram for Morningside Station was waiting at the stop. With her child bobbing on her hip and their bag of clothes clutched in her other hand, Willa ran for it, and managed to scramble aboard. Malcolm giggled with delight.
‘You just made it,’ said the conductor cheerfully before reaching up to pull the cord.
~ 27 ~
St Vincent, Cape Verde Islands,
West Africa
18th September, 1924
Dear Willa
Our last port of call before England!
‘Can that be right?’ asked Pauline. ‘The last port?’
‘It must be,’ said Willa, though to her, too, it seemed unreal. Everything did since that terrible ride in the tram car back to Tollcross. Malcolm had stood up on her knee the whole time, laughing at a man in the seat behind who was making funny faces at him and she had wept, unnoticed. Fortunately they had got home before Ina and Willa had been able to screw up her note and put it in the fire.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Pauline.
‘Do?’ repeated Willa.
They were in the bedroom. Malcolm was in the kitchen with his grandmother and aunts Bunty and Elma.
‘Tommy’s going to be home soon, isn’t he? And then he’ll be away again. I know Ina’s not a bad old soul, taken in small doses, but you’ll go nuts if you have to sit in the kitchen with her day in, day out, for the rest of your life. Well, her life, at any rate.’
‘I don’t intend to sit in the kitchen day in, day out. I went in to see Mrs Andrews in the wool shop yesterday. The job was still open. Day and a half a week. Better than nothing. She says I can have it.’
‘But I thought you didn’t want to leave Malcolm with Ina?’
‘Oh, that doesn’t bother me any longer. He’s not going to stop loving me because he spends the day with her. He’ll probably be glad to see me at the end of it!’
They laughed.
‘The money will be useful. I’m going to put it by, for later.’
‘For what?’
‘Who knows? I’ll see when the time comes. Meanwhile, I’ve signed on for evening classes. I’m going to do my matric.’
‘And Richard?’
‘He’ll go back to university, I expect.’
Willa wondered if one day he might publish his book, about her, about them, not in the near future, but at a later date when time had passed. She had a strange sensation that she might go into the library, recognise his name on a spine, take down the book and see her words, and Tommy’s words. Perhaps, by then, the pain would have dulled enough to allow her to read them.
The door opened, turning their heads.
‘Was that the post?’ Ina’s eyes went to the letter in Willa’s hand.
‘I was just coming through,’ said Willa.
They followed Ina into the kitchen.
‘Where’s the brave lad now?’ asked Bunty.
‘St Vincent, in the Cape Verde Islands. Off the coast of West Africa.’
They settled themselves for the reading.
St Vincent belongs to Portugal and I am glad that it does and not to Britain as it is a God-forsaken place, mountainous, desolate and uncultivated. Although it belongs to Portugal the natives speak English fluently. The Portuguese are welcome to it!
‘That’s blasphemy,’ said Elma. ‘No place on earth is God-forsaken. Tommy should know better. He went to Sunday school.’
‘That was a while ago,’ said Bunty. ‘And he was never that keen, if I remember rightly. Ina used to have to bribe him.’
‘I did not!’ Ina was indignant.
‘You used to say you’d get him an ice cream or a lolly if he behaved himself and sat quiet. Only time he went willingly was to the summer outing at the seaside.’
‘You get up my wick at times, Bunty, so you do,’ said Ina.
‘I always liked the outings best myself,’ said Pauline. ‘Who wouldn’t, compared to singing hymns?’
‘Lots of children enjoy singing hymns, Pauline, and reading Bible stories,’ said Elma.
Sharks are plentiful. One was hovering near two men in a boat who hit it with one of their paddles hoping to flatten it, but to no effect. They then became even more excited but, luckily for them, the shark lost interest and swam quietly away. The Delhi put out a line with meat hooked onto the end and, next morning, they pulled in a ten footer.
‘They wouldn’t eat it, would they?’ asked Pauline.
No one knew. Elma certainly hoped not.
‘It doesn’t sound as if there’ll be any picnics on the beach in the Cape Verde Islands,’ said Willa.
‘Or dancing either,’ said Pauline.
‘He’s done enough of that to last a lifetime,’ sniffed Elma.
Pauline made a face at Willa behin
d Elma’s back.
She was in good spirits. She was to start work as a stenographer at the Infirmary the next day. Also, she had met a really nice, attractive, well-heeled, well-mannered, unmarried, genuine man at the Palace Ballroom last Saturday night and he’d already taken her to the cinema and the cocktail bar in the Caley Hotel and paid for everything. She was going out later to look for a room to rent.
‘Read on, Willa,’ urged Ina.
Rear-Admiral Brand came on board last night to say goodbye. He was too upset to say very much as he was sorry to be leaving the squadron so he wrote a letter thanking us all for our loyalty and support of his endeavours during the Imperial Cruise.
‘That was real nice of him,’ said Elma. ‘Obviously a well-mannered man.’
‘Probably God-fearing too,’ said Bunty.
‘You can tell when someone’s top drawer,’ said Ina.
‘This is what he wrote,’ said Willa.
‘On bidding farewell to you I take this opportunity of thanking all captains, officers and men for their loyalty and devotion to duty, which has made the squadron an honour and a pleasure to command which I leave with very real regret. To have steamed some 45,000 miles in 10 months with no serious defects is a matter for congratulation. The general bearing and the conduct of the men ashore has, throughout, been only what I expected of them, that is, in accordance with the highest traditions of the Service and by this exemplary conduct have upheld the finest traditions of the British Navy.’
Rear-Admiral Brand was lustily cheered on leaving the ship.
‘Makes you feel proud,’ said Ina, wiping a spot of moisture from her eye with the edge of her pinny.
‘Maybe Tommy did the right thing after all by joining the Navy,’ said Elma.
‘I’m surprised they all behaved so well on shore,’ said Pauline. ‘See when some ships come in to Leith, half the sailors are the worse for drink. They’re vomiting all over the place. The stink in the gutters is something terrible.’
‘But those sailors who come in to Leith are not special,’ said Ina. ‘They’re a different kettle of fish to Tommy’s Special Service Squadron. They’re probably foreign too.’
Rear-Admiral Brand is a true gentleman and we know that he meant every word he said. There are people of high rank in all stations of life who make speeches and do not mean them but when an admiral addresses a ship’s company on the quarter deck of a man-of-war and feels the position so keenly that he is lost for words then it speaks for itself.
‘Well, I’m glad they were appreciated,’ said Ina. ‘What do you say, Malkie? Hasn’t your daddy done well?’
He was trying to climb up onto the dresser, which was cluttered with all manner of things to interest him, such as a basketful of his granny’s curlers, a toby jug full of hat pins and a china boot saying PRESENT FROM BLACKPOOL, brought back by Bunty after her weekend there with Mr Parkin. Bunty lifted him down and gave him one of the custard slices she’d brought in from the baker’s. His mother, who didn’t approve of him being given sweet cakes, was too busy with the letter to notice. Her eyes were fixated on the next sentence.
Once we get to Chatham we will be coming home, for a month’s leave! Yippee!
Willa’s mind was racing. A whole month, she was thinking, with this man called Tommy, the father of her child. He had faded away into a sepia-tinted picture in her mind. But he could well be in Chatham at this very moment, for all they knew, or even in London, at King’s Cross, getting ready to board the Flying Scotsman. There was always a long gap between the letters being posted and arriving.
‘You’ll need to get out the fatted calf,’ said Bunty. ‘Maybe Gerry could come up with one?’
‘I’m not sure that he sells fatted calves,’ said Elma. ‘He’s not feeling too well at the moment, did I mention that? He’s been a bit down in the dumps though he says there’s nothing wrong with the business. That’s something anyway.’
They all knew why, of course, but nobody was going to say. They’d had a farewell party at Maureen’s two nights ago, just Bunty, Willa, Pauline and Gerry. Daffy the peke had gone to his new owner, an obliging customer of Bunty’s. The evening had not been as lively as the usual ‘dos’ in her house and Gerry had looked as if he might start greeting at any moment. Willa had not felt too cheerful herself.
‘Well, herrin’ in oatmeal isne going to be good enough for our Tommy when he comes home,’ said Bunty. ‘He’ll have got used to fancy fare. Chinese banquets and that. You’ll need to give him a hero’s welcome, Ina.’
‘He’s not been at war,’ said Willa. ‘I don’t know that he’d be called a hero.’
‘Not seeing he’s spent so much time dancing,’ agreed Pauline.
‘Some of those seas they’d to cope with were rough, mind,’ said Ina tartly. ‘It wasn’t all a picnic.’
‘But the beaches were blessed with sunshine and the dancehalls fair glittered with lights!’ said Bunty. ‘And the girls—’
She paused, as did they all. They cocked their ears to listen. Somebody had put a key in the lock and was opening the front door. Now there were footsteps coming along the hall. Quiet, almost stealthy footsteps. They all stood up and Malcolm, sensing an important moment, removed the half-eaten custard slice from his mouth.
The kitchen door was flung open and there stood Tommy, the sailor home from the sea, his cap on the back of his head, his kitbag slung over his shoulder, radiating energy, a wide smile on his bronzed, handsome face. Immediately the room came into life, as if a Hallowe’en sparkler had been tossed into its midst.
‘Tommy!’ they cried.
He dropped the kitbag and throwing his cap across the room, said, ‘Yes, it’s me! I’m home, folks.’
His mother gulped and put a hand over her heart.
And then he came towards Willa, with eyes only for her, bypassing his mother, his son, and his aunts, saying, ‘How’re you doin’, darlin’? How’s my great big beautiful doll?’ and she went towards him, hands outstretched to meet his, remembering why she had come to marry him.
About the Author
JOAN LINGARD is the acclaimed author of over 40 books for both children and adults. She was born in Edinburgh and brought up in Belfast, the inspiration for many of her novels, including the compelling Across the Barricades. She was awarded the MBE in 1998 for Services to Children’s Literature.
By Joan Lingard
The Kiss
Encarnita’s Journey
After You’ve Gone
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
13 Charlotte Mews
London W1T 4EJ
www.allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2007.
This ebook edition first published in 2012.
Copyright © 2007 by JOAN LINGARD
The moral right of author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1209–0
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