A Distant Dream (28 page)

‘I know I’ve always been a bit of a nightmare,’ Betty said, her strength seeming to fade. ‘Always wanting more than I’ve got. I never loved George as a wife should – we just made the best of a bad job ’cause I was pregnant – but I do love my boy Joe. Maybe I like to get away from him now and then to have some grown-up fun, but he means the world to me.’

‘I know, Betty, I know,’ May assured her. ‘Don’t talk, save your strength until the first-aid people get here.’

‘You will look out for my Joe if I don’t make it, won’t you, May?’ she said weakly.

‘Of course I will, but you’ll be here to look out for him yourself, so no more of that sort of talk,’ said May. She was trying her utmost to stay calm, but panic was beginning to rise, especially when blood started to trickle on to the ground near Betty’s legs. ‘Once they get your head stitched up you’ll be fine.’

Hearing voices and managing to see further afield as the dust began to settle, she shouted again, ‘Help please, over here.’

‘Soon as we can,’ said a voice. ‘There are a lot of people hurt in this lot.’

May concentrated on keeping Betty awake as she drifted in and out of consciousness, her head on May’s lap as she sat on the ground. ‘Come on, Betty. Don’t go to sleep on me.’

‘All right, stop bossing me about, May Stubbs,’ Betty said, opening her eyes. ‘You always have been a bossy cow.’

May smiled through her tears. It was so good to hear her friend sounding normal. ‘I’ve always had to be, with you as my friend.’

‘Yeah, because I always get into a mess. This latest one being the worst of the lot.’

‘Don’t worry about that now,’ urged May. ‘You need to save your strength.’

‘Look out for Joe, May,’ said Betty.

The first-aid people arrived. ‘Thank God for that,’ said May with relief. ‘She’s bleeding heavily from a head wound. She must have been hit by flying debris.’

‘All right, love; you leave her to us,’ said one of the men.

She was just wondering if she should mention the other source of the bleeding when Betty went limp and her head fell to one side.

‘No,’ May screamed. ‘Do something, please.’

‘Out of the way please, miss,’ said the man. ‘Let’s get her on a stretcher.’

Trembling from head to toe, May got up and stood to one side while the first-aid man went down on his knees to Betty.

‘Sorry, miss,’ he said after a while. ‘She’s gone.’

‘She can’t have done,’ May said. ‘She was talking to me just now, making a joke.’

‘I really am very sorry,’ he said, as two men moved in with a stretcher. ‘We need to take her away to clear the area. I think you should go home now.’

Having forcibly to stifle her rising hysteria, May watched as they covered Betty’s body and carried her away. This was the reality of war: people becoming objects to be moved off the streets along with all the other debris and rubbish. With tears streaming down her face, she started walking home. There would be no buses as the road was blocked by wreckage.

It was as though a huge chunk of her life had been stripped away and she could barely take it in. Anger rose at these terrible things that kept happening; they seemed so unjust and pointless. But uppermost in her mind was Joe. With his mother dead, his father away at the war, maternal grandparents who had never acknowledged him and a paternal grandmother who couldn’t cope with young children, what was going to happen to him?

He slept in her bed beside her that night while she lay awake grieving and worrying. Mum and Dad had been frantic when she’d eventually got home, quite late because it was a long walk. They’d been shocked at the news, of course, and had told her that Joe had been unusually difficult at around the time Betty had died.

Pure coincidence, of course, but May couldn’t help thinking that there would be more fretting to do for the poor little thing. But he would have her support through it all. Even if she hadn’t made the promise to Betty she would have looked out for him. She was his godmother and she adored him.

Dot Bailey was visibly shaking after May told her the news.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘She’d only gone to Acton to see an old friend, hadn’t she?’

The deceit had outlived the perpetrator, thought May, as she said, ‘That’s right, Mrs Bailey.’ No one must ever know the real reason they were out last night. That was one secret that should be kept for the greater good.

‘Ooh, I shall have to make some tea and bugger the rationing,’ said the older woman, taking the kettle from the hob and filling it. ‘I feel shaky and weak from the shock. I expect you could do with one as well.’

‘Thank you.’ May waited until they were sitting at the kitchen table with their tea before broaching the subject. ‘Of course we shall have to decide what’s going to happen about Joe, won’t we, Mrs Bailey, with George being away,’ she said. ‘He’s with my mum at the shop at the moment. I thought it best to break the news to you while you were on your own.’

‘Yes, thank you, dear,’ she said nervously.

‘His other grandparents won’t want to know,’ May pointed out. ‘So I am quite happy to look after him at home with us until his dad gets back. Mum and I would do it between us as we both work.’

Dot seemed a bit vague about this for a moment, stirring her tea and looking bewildered. Then she said, ‘Thank you for offering, dear, but I’m his grandmother and his place is here with me.’

May was astonished and not at all happy with the idea. Dot was nervous and Joe was a boisterous little boy who needed a strong hand as well as love. ‘But I thought you found looking after him too much for you,’ she said.

‘Yes, I always have in the past,’ she confirmed. ‘But I shall have to toughen up now that he needs me, won’t I?’

‘Well, yes . . . if you think you’re up to it.’

‘You don’t think I can do it, do you?’

‘It isn’t that,’ said May. ‘It’s just that you’ve always said he’s too much for you, and Joe would sense any reluctance on your part and be upset.’

‘I know he means the world to you and you’re worried about him,’ said the older woman. ‘But I promise you that I will do everything I can to make sure my grandson has the best life I can give him until George gets back.’

May stared at her, noticing the resolution in her voice and perceiving something she had never seen in Mrs Bailey before: strength.

‘I know I’ve been a bag of nerves since I lost my husband in such a terrible way and everybody thinks I’m a feeble old bat,’ Dot went on. ‘But I have been given a challenge now and I intend to rise to it.’

‘Good for you,’ said May.

‘Of course, if Joe’s adoring godmother wants to help me out now and again and offer some moral support, it will be very much appreciated.’

‘I’ll call round every day in my lunch hour to see how you’re getting on,’ said May. ‘And I’ll have him on my afternoon off or on Sundays to give you a break if you would like.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ said Dot, reaching over and putting her hand on May’s. ‘Together we’ll get through this.’

May’s eyes filled with tears. Suddenly she trusted Mrs Bailey. ‘Yeah,’ she said thickly. ‘We will.’

There was only a small gathering for Betty’s funeral. It had been arranged by her parents, who May didn’t know well because Betty had never been allowed to have friends home as a child.

When May had delivered the news of their daughter’s death to them, it was the first time she had ever had a conversation with them. They had just been the shadowy figures inside the house when she and Betty were children, as indeed most parents were. They must have recognised their duty in arranging this one last thing for their daughter, but there was no wake back at the house because of the rationing.

‘That wasn’t much of a send-off, was it?’ said Sheila to May as they walked home together. Dot had stayed home with Joe, who they had considered to be too young to attend the funeral. ‘I wasn’t a particular fan of Betty’s but surely they could have done better than that.’

‘You can’t put on a spread with rationing being as it is,’ May pointed out. ‘Anyway, they’d been estranged for years.’

‘Mm, I suppose so,’ said Sheila, who was on compassionate leave because of a death in the family. ‘It’s a shame George didn’t make it. We did let the army know his wife had died but I suppose he’s too far away to be able to get back.’

‘Probably,’ said May. ‘He’ll be worried about Joe, though, wondering who’s looking after him.’

‘Mm . . . and that’s the biggest surprise I’ve had in years, Mum getting stuck in and making such a good job of it.’

‘I was amazed when she said she would do it,’ said May. ‘I was quite prepared to have him but she insisted. I do take him off her hands on a regular basis, but I do that for me because I love to have him.’

‘You’ll be keeping your beady eye on her, I expect,’ suggested Sheila.

‘Not really,’ said May. ‘I thought I would need to, but she’s doing really well.’

‘It’s taken something like this to get her back to her old self,’ said Sheila. ‘I knew she still had it in her. That’s why I was always so impatient with her, because I knew it was possible for her to get back to how she’d been before.’

‘Poor little Joe, though,’ said May. ‘It’s heartbreaking when he cries for his mother.’

‘Yeah, but because he’s so little he’ll soon forget, and he’s got a good back-up team in you and Mum,’ said Sheila. ‘I’m sorry I’m not around to help.’

‘Are you glad you joined up?’ asked May.

‘Yes and no. I miss the home comforts, of course, and it’s a very hard life, but there’s great comradeship and lots and lots of laughs,’ she said.

‘I thought about it myself but I know I wouldn’t pass the medical,’ said May.

‘I’ve learned to drive and to weld and to use a typewriter. Chances I’d never have had before the war.’

‘Yeah, that’s one positive thing the war has done for women: given them jobs other than working in a shop and cleaning up after other people.’

‘I think we would all rather not have had it, especially poor old Betty, but it’s here and we have to put up with it.’ Sheila thought for a while. ‘Of course you’ve had a double blow, haven’t you? First your intended, then your best friend.’

‘It has been hard,’ May told her. ‘Of the two it’s Betty I shall miss the most because we’d known each other all our lives and shared so many experiences. I don’t quite know how I’m going to get through it, to tell you the truth.’

Sheila linked her arm through May’s companionably. ‘You’ll do it,’ she said warmly. ‘You’re the sort of person who will get through anything and come out smiling.’

‘Really?’ said May. ‘How do you make that out?’

‘TB, the loss of your brother, even before the latest disasters, and you’re still game to fight another day.’

‘I’d never thought about it in that way.’

‘Well you can give yourself a pat on the back and that’s definite,’ Sheila said with a smile in her voice.

Those few words of encouragement raised May’s spirits and renewed her strength. Betty’s death had all but floored her, but now she felt as though she could carry on and win through.

‘Thanks, Sheila,’ she said, and they went on their way chatting pleasantly. May thought how far Sheila had come from that petulant child who was forever being horrid to her mother. Now she was remarkably mature for her eighteen years, which probably had something to do with being in the services.

The air raids eased off towards the end of the month and into February, something Londoners attributed to bad flying weather and the fact that the Luftwaffe were concentrating on provincial cities. Missing Betty and badly in need of a friend now that Sheila had gone back to camp, May took advantage of the lull in the bombing to get together with Connie again. They met on a Sunday at Marble Arch and had a walk through Hyde Park, which was awash with people in uniform.

‘Betty wasn’t what you could call the most loyal friend,’ May confided as they walked at a steady pace, the weather cold but bright and clear, the silver barrage balloons gleaming in the pale sunshine. ‘In fact she was a taker and out for herself and could drive me mad at times, but I miss her something awful and think I always will. We shared so much history, and for all her faults – and she knew she had them – she made me laugh.’

‘That’s what friendship is all about, isn’t it?’ said Connie. ‘Liking someone warts and all.’

‘Exactly,’ said May. ‘I probably got on her nerves at times.’

‘None of us is perfect.’

May laughed. ‘You were supposed to say that you were sure I didn’t.’

‘Ha ha, sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not best known for my sense of diplomacy.’

‘No you’re not. I remember that from Ashburn. You always did say it like it was, especially with your predictions about Doug and me.’

‘I was right too,’ said Connie, adding more seriously, ‘poor old Doug. He survived TB then fell victim to a bomb. Staying alive is such a matter of luck these days.’

‘Not half,’ said May and changed the subject quickly to raise the mood. ‘Anyway, what have you been doing since we last met?’

‘I’ve gone into war work.’

‘Have you really?’ said May in surprise. ‘No problem with your medical history then?’

‘No, probably because I’m not in munitions,’ she explained. ‘Anyway, they are so desperate for people now they can’t afford to be too strict.’

‘Where is the job?’

‘In a parachute factory.’

‘And you actually told them you’d had TB?’

She nodded. ‘I was quite honest about it and expected the bloke to turn me down flat, but he thought about it for a while then said they wanted people to make parachutes and he thought I should be all right with that, especially as I’m very experienced with sewing machines.’

‘A different attitude to before the war, then.’

‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘With so many men away at the war they have to cut a few corners, I think. You don’t get a choice about where you work either. I’m based in Acton, which is fine for me, but I know people who have quite a journey to work. Some even have to leave their area and find lodgings.’

‘Dad has to go a long way every day to the docks,’ said May. ‘It’s right across London on the tube.’

It wasn’t warm enough to sit by the lake, so they made their way back to Oxford Street and went into Lyons and had a cup of tea and a wartime bun.