by Annie Groves
‘Poor old you. So no trips down the Duke’s Arms in the near future.’
‘Probably not,’ Billy admitted. ‘Not that Kath would stop me, she’s not like that. But I’m too knackered. And what’s that other place you and Kenny went to? You said it was a bit rough but worth it cos it was cheap.’
As if summoned by his name, Kenny came into the warehouse, wiping his glasses as he did so. ‘All right, Bill? Ron, so you’ve decided to join the world of work once more, I see.’
‘Very funny.’ Ron glared at his mate. ‘Leave it out, you’d do the same if your brother came back for a spot of leave. Anyway, Bill, you mean the Boatman’s. I ain’t been there for a bit, to tell you the truth. I got put off. Some of the clientele weren’t to my taste, you could say.’
Kenny rocked back in mock offence. ‘What are you saying, Ron? Meaning me, are yer? Charmed, I’m sure.’
Ron shook his head. ‘You know very well who I mean.’
Billy watched the exchange carefully, not knowing what they were on about. He sensed the air of usually friendly banter had taken a darker turn.
Kenny pulled a face. ‘All right, fair point. It ain’t the most salubrious of pubs and I never said that it was. Anyway, you missed the latest. We had a bit of a to-do there earlier on this week.’
‘Oh?’ Ron clearly wasn’t sure if he wanted to be drawn in.
‘Yeah, the Old Bill was there. Looking for the landlord’s bastard brother, they was.’
Billy caught the sharp look that passed between the two other men.
‘What, that Max feller? Why, what’s he been and done now?’ Ron asked warily.
‘Gawd knows,’ said Kenny. ‘Aside from the usual, wheeling and dealing out the back when he’s not banging the singers. They said something about coming on behalf of the military police. He’s dodged conscription or something like that. He’ll have to keep well away if he’s got any sense.’
‘I wondered how he managed to avoid the call-up,’ Ron replied, frowning. ‘What with black-marketeering not being a reserved profession and all that.’
Kenny shrugged. ‘But will he keep away though? It’s a bit of a honey pot for him. He’s got that Patty Walker singing nearly every night, and I don’t think he’s paying her in hard cash, if you get my drift.’
Ron swallowed hard. ‘And that other singer, the younger one – blonde hair, pretty, but not much of a voice?’
‘I don’t think he’s interested in her for her voice,’ Kenny said, then clapped his hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry, I just remembered. She’s the sister of one of the nurses, isn’t she? The one who came down the pub that time when she was worried. You got me looking out for her that time. Well, the nurse has got reason to be worried. That blonde kid is still hanging round but not singing as often. I don’t know what’s going on but something’s not right.’
‘Nothing’s right with that place – it’s a dive,’ Ron said, cross now that he hadn’t followed up on Gladys’s concerns. ‘Her sister is decent through and through; she don’t deserve any grief from that Max. He’s a nasty piece of work and no mistake.’
‘All right, don’t get your knickers in a twist.’ Kenny looked as if he wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
Ron held up his hands in apology. ‘Not your fault, Ken. I ain’t cross with you, it’s myself I’m mad with. I knew he was up to no good with her, but I ain’t done anything about it. Now you say something else is going on, and he’s wanted by the police on top of it. And I’ve just stood back, forgetting it.’
Billy grew concerned. ‘What’s it to do with you though, Ron?’
‘That sister. Gladys, what works at the nurses’ home and does first aid in the evenings.’ It was all coming back to him now. ‘She don’t have anyone else to help her. I don’t know if she’s even clocked that things have got worse. I’m going to tell her.’
‘And then what?’ Kenny demanded. ‘Ain’t none of your business, Ron. Crossing paths with Max will only lead to trouble, you know that as well as I do.’
Ron squared his shoulders. ‘That’s as maybe. She’s a good’un, that Gladys. She shouldn’t have to worry about her sister like that. I’m going to warn her, and then if she wants me to help, I will.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Peggy had taken great care with her new outfit. She had never claimed to be gifted with a needle, but she had tried her best, and persuaded first Clarrie and then Mrs Cannon to help her. Now, as she straightened her collar and adjusted her cuffs, she thought it was as good as she could possibly make it.
She had had the idea months ago, when James had sent her his picture of a couple dancing, the woman wearing a spotty dress. Peggy had decided there and then that she would have one just like it.
She knew it was an extravagant use of clothing coupons, but she reckoned it would be worth it, just to see his face. She knew he would recognise it at once and share the delight at what she had done. She wanted to see his eyes light up with appreciation.
At first she had scoured the shops and market stalls, hoping to find a close match. It was a long shot, but she thought if she tried enough places, she might strike it lucky. She didn’t mind if the colours weren’t the same as in the picture. The main thing was it would be in a spotty fabric.
As the weeks and then months passed by, she began to despair of ever finding the elusive spotted dress. She ranged further afield, using her days off to try to hunt one down. Still success evaded her. There were no dresses with polka dots to be found, not in Dalston, or Islington, or further east, or even in the West End. Peggy had balked at paying central London prices, but had decided to splurge her savings if she found the right thing. Yet even on Oxford Street there was no sign of the magic dress, so she had been unable to surprise James on his last visit to the capital.
They had had a wonderful time together, nevertheless, and as he hadn’t known about her plan, he could not be disappointed. He went back to his army base none the wiser. Peggy, however, decided to follow a different plan: she would find the material and make the dress herself.
Clarrie had helped her choose the pattern. Peggy knew she would have to keep it simple, and not include the little flourishes the woman in the drawing wore – flounced sleeves, flared panels in the skirt. That didn’t matter. She would do the best she could. Clarrie showed her how to lay out the paper pattern and arrange the fabric flat, how to pin and tack and use tailor’s chalk. Peggy concentrated as hard as she could, full of admiration for her clever friend. She was glad she had chosen a fabric with small dots; she could see that bigger ones would need careful matching and she wasn’t sure she would have had the patience for that.
When Clarrie had cried off one evening, regretfully admitting she needed to catch up on her sleep as days of working at the factory followed by nights of fire-watching had left her exhausted, Mrs Cannon had stepped in. She had shown Peggy how to sew buttonholes, and Peggy had duly copied her example and slowly finished the task. It had taken hours but finally Mrs Cannon pronounced herself satisfied with the result. ‘You don’t want to scrimp on the buttonholes,’ she explained. ‘Too small and you can’t do it up, too big and the whole thing comes undone. You can’t have that – not if you are doing the jitterbug.’
Peggy had stared at that, not realising the older woman had heard of the dance craze. That had made Mrs Cannon laugh out loud, knowing only too well what was going through the girl’s mind. ‘Oh yes, in my day we used to go dancing as well, you know,’ she had chuckled. ‘You young folk didn’t invent it.’
Now Peggy blushed a little at the memory. She knew she would never have completed the dress without Mrs Cannon’s help. She turned and looked at the side profile, noting how the skirt swung in a flattering way. It was a bright turquoise with the polka dots in contrasting white, and suited her colouring. Truly, even if she said so herself, it was a lovely dress.
James was to call for her before they went out. She had made some savoury scones as well as ginger biscuits, in case he hadn�
�t had time to eat beforehand. The train journey would most likely be delayed in some way and she didn’t want him going hungry on her account. She made her way downstairs from her room, to check all was in readiness.
She was too excited to sit still, thrilled at the prospect of seeing him again. Her heart was beating so loudly she thought the neighbours must be able to hear it. She paced around the small, neat kitchen, waiting for the knock on the front door. She poured herself a glass of water, drank half and then realised she didn’t want it. Shaking her head, she tipped the rest of it away down the sink. Her hands shook a little.
Peggy knew that she was being silly and that she would simply have to resign herself to waiting, but patience had never been her strong point. She rearranged the plates, then put them back in their original positions. She checked that there were enough tea leaves in the tin, and that the tea cosy was in its usual place in the dresser drawer. She was seized with the urge to stand at the open front door and gaze down the street, but felt that would look bad. Yet now and again she did so. Somehow she had to keep calm and pass the agonising minutes until he turned up.
Evelyn was waiting for Gladys as she rounded the corner after work. Gladys slowed down, wondering what her sister could want. Lately she’d hardly seen her, and she wondered if she was deliberately avoiding her.
Evelyn came to meet her halfway along the street, her face flushed by the summer heat. ‘Got a moment, Gladys?’ she asked, with a nervous smile.
Gladys frowned. ‘Not really. I got to get changed and get the tea on – not unless you’ve already done it?’
Evelyn looked down at her feet in their pretty high-heeled sandals, the sprained ankle a thing of the past. ‘Ah, no, sorry.’
‘Didn’t think so.’ Gladys moved to go past her but Evelyn put out a hand. ‘Just a minute, Glad. It won’t take long.’
Gladys picked up on the anxiety in her sister’s voice. She halted and observed Evelyn carefully. She didn’t look ill – far from it. Her blonde hair shone and her skin was clear, if a little pink. She’d managed to keep her curves and if anything had put on a bit of weight, which suited her. In fact Gladys thought her sister had never looked better. What was going on?
‘All right,’ she said reluctantly, knowing that every minute spent out of the house increased her risk of being late for first aid. ‘Shall we go inside anyway?’
Evelyn shook her head and her pretty bright curls bounced in the strong sunlight. ‘No, let’s walk along a bit. No point in worrying Ma.’
Blimey, thought Gladys, when had Evelyn ever concerned herself about what might worry their mother? Still, there was no point in prolonging her distress. ‘You’d better tell me what all this is about,’ she said.
‘I will. Just not here. Turn down this way, and there’s that spot where three houses got hit – nobody will overhear us there.’ Evelyn led the way along the cracked pavement, balancing skilfully on her narrow heels, with Gladys hurrying to keep up. This must be important for such cloak-and-dagger behaviour. Crossly she stuffed her hands into the side pockets of her serviceable grey skirt.
‘Come right back, behind this wall.’ Carefully Gladys picked her way across the bombsite, avoiding the smashed brickwork and shattered roof tiles. Anything remotely useful had been taken away as salvage, and what was left was just rubble. Weeds were growing in the oddest places, a cheery buddleia poking out from what must once have been a living-room doorway. Several butterflies were fluttering around its purple flower spikes.
Evelyn ducked behind the remains of an internal wall, and they stood in the ruins of somebody’s back kitchen. It must have been decorated with floral-patterned wallpaper, the scraps of which were now stained with rainwater and scorches from the bomb blast. The edges swayed in the light breeze.
Gladys sighed. Her sister seemed reluctant to start, but time was tight. ‘Come on then, Evelyn. Out with it. What’s wrong?’
Evelyn shut her eyes for a moment. ‘I’m havin’ a baby,’ she said.
Gladys stared open-mouthed at her. There was silence apart from a couple of bees buzzing around the buddleia. ‘But … I thought it was a stomach bug,’ she said eventually. ‘That time you were sick in the privy. Was that … have you been hiding it all that time? It was ages ago.’
Evelyn nodded miserably. ‘I know you heard me and I told you it was bad drink down the Boatman’s. It wasn’t really. I thought you’d be on to me like a flash.’ Her expression seemed to imply that this was all Gladys’s fault for not guessing her secret.
Gladys put a hand out to steady herself against the dirty wall. ‘There was a bug going around then. Even the nurses got it. Then when you didn’t say nothing else, I thought you was better.’ She paused but Evelyn didn’t respond. ‘Is it Max’s? Does he know?’
Evelyn bit her lip. ‘Yes, of course it’s Max’s. What do you think I am? I don’t go with any old Tom, Dick or Harry. And no, he doesn’t know. He’ll kill me. He hates kiddies. He won’t want to know.’
‘Are you sure? Shouldn’t you tell him anyway?’
Evelyn tutted in exasperation. ‘He’s had to go away for a little while. I need to get this sorted out before he comes back.’
Gladys frowned again, thinking she must have heard wrongly. ‘Get it sorted out? What do you mean?’
Evelyn rolled her eyes. ‘You know. Get rid of it.’
The bees were still buzzing as Gladys absorbed what her sister had just said. ‘You … you want me to help you get rid of it? Get rid of your baby?’
Evelyn nodded. ‘Yes. That’s right. I don’t want it and Max definitely won’t want it. Like I said, he’ll kill me if he finds out. So I got to act now, while he’s not here. You must know somebody what can help. All those nurses and doctors you mix with – surely one of them has said something. I can’t be the only one in this predicament.’
Gladys gasped. ‘I can’t ask the nurses something like this. They don’t get rid of babies. They save them, and the mothers.’ She remembered some of the horror stories she had heard about mothers who’d tried to lose their babies and ended up very sick indeed. ‘It’s not safe to do something like that, Evelyn. You can’t. You might bleed to death.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ said Evelyn sourly. ‘I didn’t want to tell you, to be honest, but you’re my only hope. You know the right people, even if you don’t think you do. Try, Gladys! Who might have said something, all that time you’ve been there?’
‘No.’ Gladys was horrified. The very idea that she might ask the nurses such a thing – what would they think of her? Her reputation would be ruined. They might insist she stopped doing first aid. How could Evelyn assume she would be willing? Even if she had been, she knew enough to realise Evelyn had left it very late. She’d been sick in the spring. She was lucky that her bump wasn’t showing.
‘But I will help you bring it up.’ Gladys felt her heart sink at the promise. She didn’t want to have to care for another baby, not after all those years of bringing up her siblings. Yet this would be her niece or nephew. She couldn’t abandon this child, no matter how it came to be conceived. Her mind shrank away from the memory of her sister and Max in the pub’s back yard.
Evelyn stamped her foot in impatience. ‘No, Glad. That’s no good. There ain’t going to be no baby for you to bring up. I got to take this chance while Max is out of town to get rid of it. He’ll just dump me otherwise, and Patty will be right in there as soon as you can say knife. She’s been waiting for her chance for ages, seeing if I’ll slip up. Well I ain’t giving her the satisfaction.’ She spoke quickly, urgently. ‘If you won’t help me then I’ll find somebody else.’
‘No, Evelyn! It’s not safe!’ Gladys cried, but her sister had had enough. Even in high-heeled sandals, she could move swiftly, and before Gladys could stop her she was away, hurrying from the bomb site, her head held high.
Gladys slumped against the dirty wall, the news and the oppressive evening heat making her head spin. How could Evelyn imagine that Gladys would help h
er to put her life in danger? It went against everything she believed in, and everything she had been trained for. Yet, by not helping, she was perhaps pushing her sister to take an even more dangerous route, trusting herself to somebody with no proper medical experience at all.
Grimly she brushed the brick dust from her light summer jacket and old skirt. Time to go home and see to the children. Whether or not they were shortly to be joined by another new family member, they still needed their tea, and it didn’t look as if Evelyn would be there to help make it. It was all down to Gladys, yet again.
Mrs Cannon was not surprised to find the house in darkness when she opened the front door later that evening, but was alarmed when a noise came from the kitchen.
‘Who’s there?’ she called, hoping that she sounded braver than she felt. You heard such stories about burglars, emboldened by the demands of the black market. They could have been watching and knew that she had left at teatime and that Peggy had gone out with her young man after that.
‘It’s me.’ The voice quavered.
‘Peggy, why are you sitting in the kitchen in the dark?’ Mrs Cannon hurried into the back room, astonished to see the young woman lit by the dim glow from the window. She was sitting slumped over at the small table, utterly dejected. Quickly Mrs Cannon struggled with the blackout blind and then lit the gas lamp.
‘Peggy, what’s happened?’
Peggy raised her tear-stained face. ‘He didn’t come,’ she said blankly. ‘James didn’t come.’ Automatically she rose and adjusted the blind, knowing her landlady couldn’t reach it properly.
‘Leave that, dear. We’ll think about it in a moment.’ Mrs Cannon took off her cardigan and hung it over the back of one of the wooden chairs. ‘Have you heard from him – did he send word?’
Peggy shook her head and slumped down again, resting her head in her hands. ‘No, not a thing. I’ve been waiting since you left. I haven’t heard from him – not a note, nothing.’