by Ellie Dean
As Harvey and Monty watered the lamp-posts and walls and dashed back and forth, Ron strolled along with his hands in his pockets, his mind going over his plan, testing it for flaws until he was absolutely certain that nothing could go wrong.
‘Hello, Ron. Long time no see.’
Ron was so deeply engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn’t seen his old friend and fellow Somme survivor, Sergeant Albert Williams, walking towards him. Bert was in his sixties and should have retired from the police years ago, but the war had meant he’d stayed on. He was an imposing figure in his uniform, and was an expert at sniffing out trouble. But he’d never risen any higher in the ranks, for he wasn’t an ambitious man and preferred being in the thick of it on the streets rather than behind a desk.
‘Hello, Bert,’ he replied as they shook hands. ‘It’s a bit early for you, isn’t it?’
Bert nodded solemnly. ‘I’m sorry, Ron, but I’ve had a bit of bad news for your Rosie.’
Ron felt a stab of fear that was mingled with a selfish hope that Rosie’s insane husband had finally died. ‘What news?’
‘Her brother was found just before midnight in an alleyway. He’d been well and truly beaten, and if he’d stayed there much longer in the snow he’d have frozen to death.’ Bert knew Tommy of old and there was very little sympathy in his ruddy face.
Ron glanced up to the window above the pub sign. ‘How did Rosie take the news?’
‘She was a bit shocked to begin with – well, it’s not the sort of thing one expects to hear first thing in the morning, is it? But she made me a cup of tea, and seemed perfectly all right by the time I left. In fact, she told me she wouldn’t be visiting him in hospital, and that as far as she was concerned they could keep him in for as long as they wanted.’
‘Prison would be the best place for him,’ muttered Ron. ‘But we can’t always get what we wish for, can we?’
Bert smiled in agreement before he regarded Ron thoughtfully. ‘I know you and he have had your run-ins, and I can’t say I blame you – he’s a toerag of the first water. But you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this beating, would you, Ron?’
He shook his head. ‘Regretfully not, Bert. Though I’ve been tempted many a time, believe you me.’ He looked back at his reliable old friend, who’d turned a blind eye on many occasions in return for a nice bit of salmon or a bottle of French brandy. This was an auspicious meeting, for it meant his plan could now be put into place immediately. ‘But Rosie’s all right, is she? Not too upset?’
Bert grinned. ‘As right as rain, and as lovely as always. I envy you, mate. She’s quite a sight in that silky dressing gown, isn’t she?’
Ron chuckled. ‘To be sure, she is, but I’m thinking your Betsy would not be pleased to hear you saying that.’ He pulled his pipe out of his pocket, remembered he had only the illicit tobacco to fill it with, and stuffed it away again. ‘Tell me, Bert. How long is Tommy expected to stay in hospital?’
‘He should probably be in there for a week or so. The beating was very severe and left him as swollen and split as an old football, with three cracked ribs, a broken nose and leg, and at least two missing teeth. But they’re stretched to breaking point as it is, and the ward sister told me he’ll be given a series of out-patient appointments and be discharged later today.’
‘Did you manage to get a statement from him?’
Bert shook his head. ‘And I don’t expect to. He might be as crooked as a nine-bob note, but he’s not stupid. That beating was enough to keep his mouth well and truly shut.’
Ron nodded as he looked thoughtfully at the two dogs which were now drinking noisily out of the old horse trough that had stood on this site for over a century. ‘Would you be having a wee moment for a cup of coffee, Bert? Only all this talking has given me a terrible thirst, so it has.’
Bert’s ruddy face glowed with a beaming smile. ‘I reckon I can do better than coffee,’ he said. ‘There’s a bottle of good malt whisky in my desk drawer if you’re not disinclined to drinking it in my office at the station.’
Ron grinned as he slapped his old friend’s arm. ‘To be sure, Bert, that’s the best offer I’ve had all morning.’
It was almost nine o’clock by the time Ivy and Mary reached Havelock Road, for they’d had to work an extra three hours to make up for the time they’d lost whilst trapped in the shelter. They were still shaken up by the experience, but at least they’d had a tea break and some breakfast in the canteen, so they weren’t still finding grit between their teeth.
They let themselves into the house and wearily shed their filthy coats and boots, aching for a long, hot bath and their beds. ‘Oh, look,’ said Mary with a squeak of delight. ‘We’ve both got post.’ She quickly retrieved the letters from the hall table and handed Ivy her two before shoving her own into her gas-mask box.
‘Good grief,’ exclaimed Doris as she came down the stairs resplendent in dressing gown, curlers and full make-up. ‘You look like a couple of chimney sweeps.’ She bustled over to them and eyed their filthy clothes. ‘Get those off immediately and take them – and your coats – out to the scullery. I can’t possibly have all that dirt traipsed into the house.’
‘Yeah, we’re fine, thanks fer askin’,’ snapped Ivy as she undid the straps and let her tattered dungarees drop to the doormat to reveal her bruised body, much-mended knickers and a greying brassiere. ‘A bomb hit the bleedin’ factory shelter and the firemen ’ad to dig us out,’ she continued furiously as she peeled off her socks. ‘Only four people were taken to the hospital – not that you’re interested, of course – but Gawd save us if we get a bit of muck on yer bleedin’ floor.’
Doris went pale beneath the carefully applied make-up. ‘You will not use that gutter language in my home,’ she snapped. ‘Mary, take off those clothes before you go a step further.’
Mary was too tired to argue, so she stripped off her torn slacks and dirty shirt and sweater, whipped off her socks and bundled everything up with her coat to carry them out to the freezing cold lean-to where Doris kept the rather terrifying washing machine.
‘And give them a good shake outside before you put them in my machine,’ ordered Doris. ‘It’s expensive to repair, and I will not have it clogged up with dust and debris and goodness knows what else.’
‘But it’s brass monkeys out there,’ protested a still-seething Ivy.
‘You don’t seriously expect us to go out there in our underwear, do you?’ asked Mary in disbelief. ‘Don’t you realise it’s snowing?’
Doris peered through the window and clucked. ‘Leave them on some newspaper and do it later then,’ she said waspishly. ‘And don’t use all my hot water having baths. A proper strip wash will be quite adequate.’
‘But if we don’t have baths we’ll get your sheets all mucky,’ said Ivy, who was holding onto her dignity by folding her arms and glaring with defiance. ‘And believe me, Mrs Williams, I got rubble and dust in places a strip wash ain’t never gunna reach.’
Doris reddened. ‘Just get upstairs and stop being a nuisance,’ she snapped. ‘I have visitors coming for morning coffee later on, and I don’t want them catching sight of either of you.’
They were about to hurry off when Doris’s voice stopped them. ‘By the way, Mary. There’s a message for you from my sister. She will meet you upstairs in the Anchor at three o’clock this afternoon.’
‘Oh, all right. Thank you.’
Doris sniffed. ‘I can’t think what you find so attractive about that ghastly place or indeed that Braithwaite hussy – but then I have standards which you are clearly lacking. Go to bed, the pair of you.’
They ran upstairs to their bedroom and tossed a coin to see who would be first in the bath. Ivy won, so Mary stripped off her underwear and wrapped herself in her warm dressing gown to watch the snow come down before she read her letters.
It looked lovely, lying thick and white along the branches of the trees, the rooftops and lamp-posts, masking the ugly barbed wire along
the seafront and turning the poor old ruined pier into something quite festive. She watched from her high vantage point as a solitary dog-walker strolled down the promenade, leaving traces of their passage behind them in the pristine whiteness, and then she smiled as she saw a group of young soldiers having a snowball fight, while two little girls and their mother made a snowman in their garden. It seemed that snow brought the child out in everyone.
She turned away from the scene and eagerly opened the first of her letters. It was from Jack, but distressingly short, for he was about to leave on his first posting that very day. He was forbidden to tell her where he was heading, but promised to send her the address and write when he could. His letters would be airgraphs from now on, so that told her he was being sent abroad, which made her feel very uneasy.
He continued on to tell her that the memory of their short time together over Christmas would stay with him always, and that he could never in a million years imagine life without her. He ended by signing his name with a flourish and adding SWALK at the bottom.
Mary held the letter close to her heart before reading it again, and then reluctantly folded it back into the envelope.
The second letter was much longer and full of detail and gossip from Barbara. There had been several tip-and-runs across the county, but luckily they were all still in one piece. She’d bumped into Mary’s friend Pat and her young man as they came out of the village shop, and she’d passed on her best wishes and a promise to write again soon.
Joseph was beginning to feel his age as he had to take on more of the work now the promised extra land girls had not materialised, and his elderly farmhands could no longer put in a full day. Gideon’s car was regularly oiled and polished and his trunk was now stored up in the farmhouse attic.
The church would not be rebuilt, but there was talk of putting up emergency housing where the rectory had once been, for more and more people were escaping the bombing in the cities and seeking refuge in the countryside. The rubble had already been cleared, and it was rumoured that the prefabricated houses would be arriving within the next few weeks.
Barbara felt no resentment about not having Jack home on Christmas Day, for it had been lovely just to see him once more before he was sent away again. She did fear for his safety, but then the commandos had made a man out of him, and she was so proud that she often wondered if she’d bored everyone to death by talking endlessly about him. She signed off with much love and the hope that Mary would soon come home, for they missed her.
It was a lovely letter and Mary’s eyes misted over as she tucked it away in her gas-mask box. She would write back tomorrow on her day off when she’d have more time. Now, all she wanted was to bathe away her aches and pains, and get a good few hours of sleep so she could enjoy her afternoon with Rosie and Peggy.
Peggy had spent a restless night worrying about the planned afternoon tea with Rosie and Mary. Rising at dawn, she’d watched the clock impatiently until it was a decent hour to make the out-of-town telephone call which she knew now was so vital. It was a difficult conversation, but once it had been achieved, she felt much better about things.
She waited until ten to telephone Rosie, because she knew her friend liked to have a lie-in each morning to counteract the late nights she put in behind the bar, and it would have been unfair to disturb her. The news about Tommy hadn’t come as too much of a surprise, for it was inevitable that he’d get his comeuppance sooner or later, but she had been concerned for Rosie.
Rosie had actually been quite philosophical about it all, and was far more interested in organising their little tea party that afternoon. She wouldn’t be visiting Tommy in hospital, had no real desire to give him houseroom any more, and certainly wasn’t planning on acting as his nurse and general dogsbody until he recovered.
Peggy put down the receiver at the end of the call and stood there deep in thought as she watched Daisy crawl about the hall floor. She was dreading this afternoon, and bitterly regretted telling Ron the whole story, yet she knew the truth could no longer be avoided. Whatever the outcome, it wouldn’t make for the pleasant afternoon’s tea party Rosie was looking forward to, and she wished with all her heart that she could turn back the clock eighteen years, and undo what had been done back then. Yet she’d been as powerless then as she was now, and there was nothing she could do to halt the gathering pace of inevitable Fate.
With a deep sigh, she picked up Daisy, ignored her protests and put her in the playpen with her toys and a digestive biscuit. She had a lot to do this morning, and Daisy was far too mobile now for her to be able to keep an eye on her all the time.
To keep her hands busy and her mind on other things, Peggy scoured out the bathroom before she gathered up the laundry and carried it down to the scullery where the old boiler and wringer awaited her. What she wouldn’t have given for a machine like Doris’s didn’t bear telling, but there was no way on earth she could have found the money for something so grand.
Cordelia was reading Daisy a story, doing all the voices and using her hands to illustrate the tale and keep her amused. The girls were at work except for Rita, who was still asleep, and Ron had disappeared before breakfast, so the house was pleasantly quiet for a change.
The copper boiler gurgled and rumbled, and the scullery was soon full of steam as she prodded the washing about in the hot soapy water and then dragged it out piece by piece into the stone sink. Rinsing each item thoroughly, she vented her spleen on Tommy Findlay by yanking hard on the wringer’s handle to squeeze out the water as if it was his neck.
By the time everything was washed to her satisfaction, she was out of breath and sweating, and her hair was sticking to her head under the scarf. There was a tin tub and a basket full of clean washing now, and she hoisted the heavy basket onto her hip and stepped outside. There was still some snow lying in the shadows, but most of it had turned into treacherous ice, some of which hung in long needles from the gutters and windowsills and shone like glass on the paving slabs.
Treading very carefully, she carried the basket to the line, her heated hands and face already stinging from the cold wind that was coming off the sea. If this weather continued, she thought as she pegged out the sheets, there would be more snow tonight. The man on the wireless had said this was the coldest snap to be recorded for several years, and she could absolutely believe it.
She was about to hang up a towel when she heard the telephone ringing, so she left it in the basket and slipped and slithered her way back indoors to answer the call. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s me – Doris.’
Peggy’s spirits plummeted and she sank down onto the hall chair. ‘Is it important, Doris? Only I’ve got a busy morning’s work to get through.’
‘Busy or not, I do think you might actually give some of your precious time to your sister when she is in need,’ replied Doris, who didn’t at all sound needy.
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Peggy. ‘What’s happened now?’
‘It’s Ted,’ she replied. ‘He’s decided he prefers living in his flat above the Home and Colonial, and has turned down my offer to return home.’
Peggy honestly couldn’t blame him. Doris had been a nightmare all through the arrangements for the wedding, and things hadn’t improved much since. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said tactfully. ‘But you seemed to be getting on all right these past few months. What’s changed?’
As Doris went on and on to catalogue all of Ted’s perceived faults, Peggy lit a cigarette and tried to concentrate. It was suspiciously quiet in the kitchen, and that usually didn’t bode well.
‘Are you listening, Margaret?’
Her imperious voice brought Peggy back to the one-sided conversation. ‘It strikes me, Doris, that if he’s such a failure in everything, you’d be better off without him. As it’s clear he has no wish to move back in, then perhaps you should just call it a day and get a divorce.’
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she snapped. ‘It would cause the most ghastly scandal.’
Peggy was about to reply when there was an almighty crash which echoed up from the cellar and almost drowned out the sharp cry of pain. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She slammed the telephone receiver down and raced past a grizzling Daisy to the cellar steps.
Cordelia was lying across the threshold, her leg twisted beneath her, her head jammed against the back door. The old tin bath Peggy had been using as an extra laundry basket was on its side, spilling the last of the washing across the concrete floor, and the ironing board had been knocked from its hook on the wall to land within inches of Cordelia’s head.
‘Cordelia! Oh, God, Cordelia,’ she gasped as she flew down the steps and fell to her knees beside the tiny, still figure. With trembling hands she touched her face, noting how pale it was, and then she saw the blood darkening her hair.
‘Rita!’ she yelled. ‘Rita, I need help.’
Rita was at her side in an instant. ‘It’s all right, I heard the crash. I’ll ring for an ambulance. Don’t move her, Auntie Peg, she could have damaged her neck or spine.’
As the girl raced back into the house in her pyjamas, Peggy took Cordelia’s hand and tried to rub some warmth into it. The wind was tearing across the garden, making the washing snap on the line, and blasting its arctic breath through the open doorway and over the inert form on the floor. ‘Cordelia,’ she urged. ‘Cordelia, you have to wake up. Please, please, love. Open your eyes.’
‘I told them to come round the back, and they should be here in less than five minutes,’ said Rita as she ran down the steps armed with the blankets from the emergency box. ‘Better not to move her head, but at least these will keep her a bit warmer.’
‘She won’t wake up, Rita,’ said Peggy hoarsely. ‘And there’s blood, look.’
‘Head wounds always bleed a lot,’ Rita replied gruffly as she tucked both blankets around Cordelia and tried to blink away her tears. ‘Don’t worry, Auntie Peg,’ she said tremulously. ‘She’ll be fine. I’m sure she will.’