The Clippie Girls

by Margaret Dickinson

  When Rose didn’t answer, but just continued to stare blindly ahead of her, Hester murmured, ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea. You’ve had a nasty shock and I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you. But it’s better to be honest – better you know now, isn’t it?’ Hester was echoing Peggy’s words, used months earlier, but then neither she nor Bob had wanted to hear such honesty. Now, though, it seemed that they expected Rose to accept it.

  Still Rose didn’t move. She felt as if she’d been poleaxed. She could think of nothing else except – he doesn’t want me. He still loves Peggy.

  The cup clattered in the saucer as Hester handed her a cup of hot, strong, sweet tea. Rose drank it thirstily. Feeling the hot liquid course through her, the colour returned to her face and she began to feel calmer, but now a heavy, hollow feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Rose, I’m so sorry. I don’t agree with him, you know that. And I told him so. Told him he was being a fool. But Bob has this overdeveloped sense of – chivalry, I suppose you’d call it – of doing the right thing.’

  ‘I suppose that’s one of the things I love about him,’ Rose said and then added, ‘do you want me to tell her?’

  ‘I can’t expect you to do that. It’s not something I want to do, I promise you, but Bob’s asked me and besides—’ She broke off and then, her mind veering away, she added, ‘Peggy might not believe you.’

  Rose gave a snort of wry laughter. ‘Oh, she’ll believe me. Especially she’ll believe me because she knows it’s the last thing I want to happen.’

  They sat for another hour, until it began to grow dark outside the windows.

  ‘I’d better put the blackout up before it gets too dark to see what I’m doing. I used to rely so on Bob to do all this sort of thing. He made them for me at the beginning of the war.’

  ‘Let me help you.’

  When all the panels were in place and Hester had switched on the light, Rose said, ‘I must be going. They’ll be wondering where I am and it’ll soon be time for Freddie’s bath and feed.’

  Hester stared at her. ‘Why should that involve you?’

  Rose hesitated and then smiled sheepishly. ‘Oh, Mrs Deeton, I never thought it would happen. I didn’t want it to and, for a long time, I fought against it.’

  ‘What?’

  Rose sighed heavily. ‘I couldn’t help it. None of us could. We’ve all fallen under his spell, you see.’

  Hester frowned. ‘Rose, you’re not making any sense.’

  ‘Freddie. We’ve all fallen in love with the little chap – all, that is, except Peggy. She won’t have owt to do with him.’

  ‘Oh – the baby, you mean. I’m sorry to hear that because, however much the rest of you love him, he needs his mother.’

  Rose nodded and pressed her lips together. She couldn’t understand her sister now. Once they’d been so close. Near in age to each other, they’d shared everything. But since Peggy had fallen in love with Terry, had dumped Bob and then got pregnant, Rose felt she didn’t know her any more.

  ‘I must go,’ she said again and kissed Hester’s cheek. ‘I’ll come again to see you, even if – if Bob doesn’t want to see me.’ Her voice cracked a little, but she cleared her throat, lifted her head and said bravely, ‘And I’ll give his message to Peggy, I promise. Don’t you worry about it any more.’

  Hester’s worried face cleared and she smiled. ‘Oh thank you, dear. It would be such a help.’

  ‘So, madam.’ Rose stood just inside the door of the bedroom where Mary, Peggy and now the baby, too, slept. ‘How long is this nonsense going on then?’

  Peggy, sprawled on the bed reading, didn’t look up. After weeks and months of her sister ignoring her, Peggy resolved not to answer Rose.

  Rose took three strides to the side of the bed and whipped the book out of Peggy’s hand. ‘Just you listen to me, Peg, for once. I’ve got a message for you . . .’ Now she had her sister’s attention. ‘But first I want to know when you’re going to get a grip and look after your child.’ When there was still no answer, Rose raised her voice, ‘Come on, let’s be knowing.’

  Peggy shrugged with a couldn’t-care-less attitude. ‘He’s fine. There are plenty of you to fuss over him.’

  Rose bent down, her face close to Peggy’s. ‘It’s not any of us he needs. It’s you. His mother.’

  ‘You didn’t want him before he came, so why all the fuss now?’

  Rose straightened up. ‘It’s like Gran says. They bring the love with them.’

  For a brief moment, Peggy looked uncomfortable and Rose knew she was getting through, piercing the armour which the young, reluctant mother had built around herself.

  ‘Peg,’ she said more gently, ‘he needs you. And we all want you to take over. Oh, we’ll want a cuddle now and again – just try stopping any of us – and we’ll help you. We don’t mean to leave it all to you, but you should be the one getting up to him in the night when he cries, the one who feeds him and baths him. Oh, Peg, you should see him when he’s in his little bath, he kicks and splashes as if he’s enjoying it already.’ Her voice quavered a little as she added, ‘You’re missing so much, Peg. Won’t you try? Please?’

  After a long pause, Peggy said, ‘I can’t. I don’t want him. I’m thinking of putting him up for adoption. So it’d be best if I don’t get close to him.’

  Rose’s mouth dropped open. ‘Adoption?’ She was appalled. ‘Oh no. No! We won’t let that happen.’

  ‘You won’t be able to stop it. As you rightly point out, he’s my child. No one else’s, not even,’ she added bitterly, ‘Terry’s. His name couldn’t be put on the birth certificate because he wasn’t here to agree. So Freddie’s a bastard – an unwanted bastard.’

  Rose turned and ran from the room, clattering down the stairs and bursting into the living room. She stood in the doorway for a moment, meeting the startled gaze of her mother. Myrtle looked up from her books, but Grace continued to stroke the face of her great-grandson as he slept in her arms. Quietly she said, ‘Not so much noise, Rose, I’ve just got him to sleep.’

  ‘She doesn’t want him – won’t have anything to do with him. She’s planning to have him adopted.’

  Now three pairs of eyes stared at her.

  ‘She can’t.’

  ‘We won’t let her.’

  ‘Never!’

  They all spoke at once, with Grace having the final say. ‘I’ll have her put away first. Declared insane, if that’s what it takes. Unbalanced after childbirth.’

  ‘Mother, you wouldn’t.’ Mary was shocked.

  Grace glanced back to the child sleeping peacefully in her arms. ‘If she tried to take Freddie from us, I wouldn’t think twice.’

  Rose stepped into the room and closed the door after her. She sat down opposite her grandmother. ‘Good old Gran.’ She was smiling now.

  Grace smiled and glanced up. ‘Not so much of the old, young lady. I might be a great-grandmother, but I can still make myself useful, even if it’s only looking after this little chap.’

  ‘You couldn’t manage him that time when I got home from work. You were only too ready to hand him over.’

  Grace chuckled and, as her eyes twinkled with mischief, Rose saw a glimpse of the younger woman her grandmother must have once been when life had been good and she’d been happier.

  ‘You reckon?’ Grace said softly.

  At the realization of how she’d been coerced into taking notice of her nephew, Rose began to laugh. ‘You old rascal!’ As she wiped the tears of merriment from her eyes, she added, ‘Do you think the same trick would work on Peggy?’

  ‘I very much doubt it.’

  Rose sobered immediately as she remembered that, amid all the shock of Peggy’s pronouncement, she’d completely forgotten to relay Bob’s message to her.

  She sighed. ‘There’s one thing that might make her change her mind. I’ve got a message for her from Bob.’

  Thirty-Eight

  ‘I don’t think you should te
ll her,’ Grace said, after Rose had explained what Hester Deeton had told her. ‘She doesn’t love him, but she might be tempted to take up his offer and it’d be wrong.’

  ‘I gave my word to Mrs Deeton,’ Rose said firmly. ‘You know me, Gran. I can be a nightmare, you know it – I know it. But one thing no one can ever say about me is that I’m not completely honest.’

  Mary stared at her daughter with a mixture of pride and pity. ‘You’d still do it even though it’ll break your heart if she does agree to marry him – and, Rose, she might well do so now. There’s such a thing as being too honest for your own good, love.’

  ‘I know, Mam, but that’s not me, is it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell her, if I was you,’ Myrtle put in. ‘She’s had her chance before and said no. Why should anyone give her a second chance? Besides, he might come back.’

  ‘No chance. Even if he’s – he’s still – you know, OK, he’s never written, never been to see her when he’s been on leave. And he must have had leave during all this time.’

  ‘Not necessarily, if he’s been sent abroad,’ Grace said. ‘It’s often months, years, before they can come home.’

  ‘Unless they’re injured.’ Mary murmured. ‘Then they come home. Have you heard just how badly Bob is hurt? Did he mother say?’

  ‘It’s a wound in his leg, but it won’t heal properly so he’s been sent back to England. He was in the desert, it seems, though Mrs Deeton had no idea.’

  ‘Ah, I’ve been reading all about that,’ Grace said. ‘There’s a right scrap going on out there. Rommel was advancing at a rate of knots—’

  ‘I’ve heard about camels being called the “ships of the desert” but I didn’t know their speed was counted in knots,’ Myrtle said facetiously.

  Grace glared at her, but went on, ‘Anyway, the Eighth Army have halted him. It was touch and go, the papers say, and it’s not over yet.’

  ‘But once he’s well again Bob’ll have to go back, won’t he?’ Mary asked, her mind on matters closer to home.

  ‘I expect so,’ Rose said heavily. Then she heaved herself reluctantly to her feet. ‘I’d better go and tell her. It might make her change her mind about how she treats little Freddie.’

  Within the space of half an hour, Rose entered the bedroom for the second time.

  ‘You again!’ Peggy said morosely. ‘Now what?’

  ‘There’s something I forgot to tell you. Bob’s back in this country and Mrs Deeton’s been to see him.’

  Peggy glanced up, obliged to say, ‘How is he?’

  ‘D’you care? Really care?’

  ‘Rose, I’m not quite as heartless as you make me out to be, I—’

  ‘Aren’t you? When you won’t even look at your own little baby boy and you’re talking about giving him away to strangers. I’d call that heartless.’

  For a moment Peggy looked ashamed, but the expression was fleeting as she hardened her heart. ‘What’s the message?’ she asked bluntly.

  ‘Mrs Deeton was going to come and see you herself, but I said I’d save her the trouble. Bob’s renewed his offer to marry you. He – he thinks you must be going through it with all the gossip and – and bringing up the baby on your own.’

  Slowly Peggy raised her head. ‘But I thought you and he were going out together now?’

  ‘I thought so too,’ Rose said bitterly, ‘but it seems he’s still hankering after you.’

  There was silence in the room until Rose couldn’t stop herself prompting some sort of response. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Peggy said and picked up her book again.

  Rose almost stamped down the stairs in her frustration. ‘My lady will give the matter some thought,’ she announced. ‘And in the meantime, I suppose we just carry on looking after Freddie.’

  ‘Of course we do,’ Grace said firmly and with a note of finality added, ‘and if I have my way, we’ll continue to do so.’

  ‘Myrtle, are you doing anything on Saturday afternoon?’

  ‘No. My exams are all finished and we break up in a couple of weeks. Why?’

  ‘I want you to come out with me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Her face brightened. ‘To buy baby clothes?’

  Rose smiled. ‘Well, we might on the way back.’

  ‘The way back? Where from?’

  Rose lowered her voice. ‘Look, Myrtle, can I trust you to keep a secret?’

  The girl blinked. ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘I’m planning to go and find Terry Price’s family. It’s high time he was told what’s happened and faced up to his responsibilities.’

  Myrtle drew in a sharp breath and her eyes widened, then, as the idea took hold, she smiled. ‘You’re right, Rose, but are you sure this has nothing to do with thinking that Peggy might change her mind and agree to marry Bob?’

  Rose glared at her. ‘You’re a bit too sharp for your own good, our Myrtle. You’ll cut yourself one of these days.’

  But Myrtle only grinned and said, ‘Course I’ll come with you. It should be fun.’

  ‘I don’t call it fun,’ Rose said primly. ‘But he should be told.’

  ‘D’you know where they live?’

  ‘Oh yes. I made it my business to find out when Peggy first started seeing him.’

  ‘Right then. Saturday afternoon it is.’

  They found the street in Attercliffe easily enough, but Rose wasn’t sure whether it was number nine or number eleven where the Price family lived.

  ‘It’s on the left-hand side from this end, I know it is.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  Myrtle laughed. ‘What did you do? Follow them home one night?’

  ‘No, I thought about it, but I was afraid they’d spot me. No, I’ve been asking round my mates on the trams and the buses that work the Attercliffe routes. They found out for me.’

  ‘Quite the little detective, aren’t you? You’d make a good spy, Rose.’

  Rose wriggled her shoulders. ‘Well, we needed to know what was going on.’

  ‘Huh! I could have told you that. You only had to look at the pair of them to see it in their faces.’

  They walked a little way down the road until they hesitated outside the two houses.

  ‘So,’ Myrtle said, ‘which door are we knocking on?’

  ‘I don’t know. Pearl wasn’t sure of the number – she just knew it was this street. Oh, come on,’ Rose added, deciding quickly. ‘It won’t matter if we get the wrong one. The neighbours’ll soon tell us where they live.’

  They knocked on the door of number nine and waited for what seemed an age until a young woman of twenty or so opened it. Behind her another girl, about the same age, hovered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re trying to find where Terry Price lives.’

  The girl opened her mouth, but before she could speak the one behind her piped up. ‘Yes, this is where he lives. What d’you want with him?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘His sister.’

  The girl who’d opened the door was blinking rapidly and colour had suffused her face.

  Rose smiled. ‘You must be Amy then,’ she said, speaking directly to the girl who had admitted to being his sister.

  For a moment, Amy looked surprised, but she moved forward, pushed the other girl out of the way and stood facing Rose with her arms folded. ‘So?’

  ‘Is your mam or dad in?’

  ‘No.’

  Rose felt as if she was getting nowhere fast. ‘We want to know how Terry is.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because – ’ now it was Myrtle who spoke – ‘when he was home on leave at the time of the blitz, he met our sister, Peggy, and they started seeing each other.’

  The other girl, still standing behind Amy and peering over her shoulder, made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob, but Myrtle pressed on. Whatever the news was going to be, they had to know the truth. They had to know what had
happened to Terry Price. But if that girl’s reaction was anything to go by, then it could be bad news. The worst. ‘But we haven’t heard a word from him for months and—’

  Rose put her hand on Myrtle’s arm and murmured, ‘Hang on a mo, Myrtle.’ Raising her voice again, she asked, ‘Is he all right?’

  Amy stared at them for a brief moment before saying, ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘So, haven’t you heard from him either?’

  Amy shook her head.

  ‘But – but if anything had – I mean – happened to him, then you’d have heard from the War Office, wouldn’t you?’

  Amy shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘But hasn’t your dad tried to find out?’

  ‘No point. If owt happens to him, we’ll hear. Like you say.’

  ‘But aren’t you worried?’

  ‘’Course we are,’ Amy snapped. ‘Anyone who’s got family in the forces is worried out of their wits. Billy’s dad down the road gets a letter most weeks off his lad, but if it’s a day or two late, he’s climbing the wall.’

  Myrtle saw the girl standing behind Amy dig her sharply in the ribs. Amy turned and glared at her, but said no more.

  Rose didn’t seem to have noticed as she went on, ‘And your mam? Isn’t she worried because Terry hasn’t written?’

  There was a brief hesitation before Amy said casually, ‘Not much of a one for letter writing is our Terry.’

  Rose smiled wryly. ‘That’s what he told Peggy, but we thought he might have written to you. To his family.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t. He could be dead for all we know.’

  Rose gasped. She knew herself to be straightforward and not afraid to speak the truth, but this girl was shockingly blunt. For once Rose didn’t know what to say. So it was Myrtle who said, ‘We need to get in touch with him. Is there an address we can write to?’

  Amy’s eyes were suddenly wary. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Peggy needs to write to him. There’s something she has to tell him.’