London Pride (69 page)

‘She'll come round,' she said wearily, when Joan broached the subject. ‘Don't let's talk about it now.'

But Joan was aggrieved and wanted to talk about it. And the more she couldn't mention it at home the more she discussed it elsewhere. She told Megan about it every Sunday, and at the end of July, when Jim came to Vine Cottage for half an hour to see how Froggy's two girls were getting on, she decided to tell him. He hadn't had any leave since the doodle-bugs began and he was eager for news.

‘You know Baby's took to her bed since the wedding, dontcher?' she said. ‘Has Peggy told you?'

‘She's done what?' Jim said, his face strained with disbelief.

‘Took to her bed,' Joan repeated. ‘She's hardly ever out of it when she's at home. Says she's got nerves, if you ever heard the like. What's she got to have nerves about? She should try working in munitions with them damn things coming over all the time, or being a warden.'

‘And what does Peggy say?'

‘Well you know Peggy. She puts up with it. Breakfast in bed. Lying in till midday Sundays. You ask me she wants a good clip round her ear ‘ole. She gets more like Mum by the day, painting her face, dyeing her hair, primping in the mirror. It makes me sick.'

The news had made Jim look serious. ‘OK,' he said. ‘So what d'you want me to do about it?'

But Joan didn't know what she wanted. She wasn't even sure whether she wanted anything at all. It was enough to have a willing ear to complain to. ‘We've got enough on our plates,' she grumbled on, ‘all of us, without her making herself an invalid.'

‘I tell you what I think,' Megan said, wading into the conversation. She was sitting in the window keeping an eye on the three kids playing in the garden. ‘I think you ought to rent a little flat somewhere, just for the two of you, an' take her right out of it and leave Baby to get on with it.'

The superb naivety of it made Jim's eyes start out of his head. For a brief second, looking round at her cottage, the cottage he'd wanted so much, he was tempted to tell her all about it, but then he controlled himself and tried to answer calmly. It would upset her terribly if she was to know all that.

‘I been flat-hunting ever since we got married,' he said. ‘If I could've taken her out of it I would've done. Long ago. There ain't a flat to be had. Nowhere. Not for love nor money. I've tried and tried.'

‘Oh dear!' Megan said, aware that she'd put her foot in it and embarrassed by her clumsiness. ‘I am sorry, Jim. I didn't know.'

He shrugged the subject away. ‘How could you? Well anyway … Just one of those things.' Then he turned to Joan who was still frowning at her tea cup. ‘I'll talk to her about this Baby business next time I'm on leave,' he promised. ‘Now I'd better cut back to camp or I shall get put in Jankers for going AWOL. They're getting very tight now we're on stand-by.'

Actually he'd already got three days' leave so as to get up to Greenwich for Peggy's birthday on Thursday. He'd bought her a present and was rather pleased with it. It was a bright headscarf and he'd got it without coupons from a street corner spiv. Before Joan spoke to him he'd been intending to write to her that evening to tell her he was coming. Now he decided against it. If Baby was really exploiting her the way Joan said, it might be better to walk in unannounced and catch her at it.

After he'd gone, and while Joan was saying goodbye to Yve and Norman, Megan sat by the window thinking over
what he'd said. Until that afternoon she'd assumed that he and Peggy were happy living from leave to leave. Now she realized what a lot they'd endured. It must have been really miserable to have been married all this time and never have anywhere to live. Poor old Peggy. Poor old Jim. If I could do anything about it, she thought, I would. I wonder whether they'd like to stay with us for a few days. Probably not. That put-u-up was jolly uncomfortable and they wouldn't get much time on their own with three kids running about the place. But if there was anything she
could
do, she'd jolly well do it. Poor things.

The next day she let Yve and Norman stay off school for a treat because they were feeling homesick, and after dinner she took all three children into Chichester. There wasn't anything much to buy in any of the shops except the rations, but it was nice to walk on pavements for a change instead of cinder paths and to hear the nice familiar rattle of cars and carts all round them instead of tractors, and besides, it gave her a chance to meet up with some of her friends. She'd lived in Merston for such a long time now that she'd made a lot of friends, mostly women of her own age with babies or toddlers, so she rarely went into Chichester without finding someone to chat to.

That afternoon was no exception. Down by the market cross in the middle of the town she met up with the dairyman's wife, a friendly young woman called Jenny.

The two of them stood in the shelter of the cross and exchanged gossip for a happy half hour, while their assorted children eyed one another and wondered how long they were going to be kept waiting.

‘It's nice to have a chat now and then,' Megan said as she prepared to move on.

‘You ought to live in Chichester,' Jenny said. ‘Then we could chat every day.'

‘Couldn't though, could I?' Megan said, making conversation.

‘Why not?'

‘There ain't any places to let.'

‘Well now that's where you're wrong,' was the surprising reply. ‘There's a house up for rent this very morning as ever is. I seen it on my way down. Some RAF type had it
apparently and he's off to France. You could have that if you wanted.'

Megan was instantly very interested indeed. But this was heaven sent. Meant to be. ‘Tell me where it is,' she said. ‘Who's got it? What's the rent? Everything.'

‘Well blow me down,' Jenny said. ‘Are you going to take it then?'

‘No,' Megan told her. ‘Not me. A very dear friend of mine.'

So after a most satisfactory visit to an estate agents where she laid claim to the house and begged a sheet of paper and pen and ink to write to Jim, she took the first country bus out of town and lugged her three grumbling children to the guardhouse at RAF Merston.

There, by laying on the charm with a trowel, she persuaded one of the guards to get her letter delivered to Sergeant Jim Boxall.

‘He'll probably be in the hangars,' she said. ‘Or I could tell you his flight if you like.'

‘You ain't supposed to know that,' the guard rebuked, flirting with her. ‘Classified that is.'

‘If you get it down to him double quick I won't tell Hitler,' she said. ‘I promise.'

So it was sent down double quick and Megan took the children home at last. ‘We'll have a special tea,' she said. ‘We've earned it.'

‘Why, Aunty Megan?' Norman asked. ‘What have we done?'

‘We've done miracles,' Megan told him. ‘That's what we've done. Miracles.'

Jim had spent the day in the hangars working on an obstinate repair. He was covered in grease when the guard delivered Megan's note so he smudged the paper with black finger prints simply by pulling it out of the envelope. But when he saw what she'd written he threw the little note into the air whooping with triumph. A house at last! A house of his own here in Chichester! It was too good to be true.

‘How long we got till we're off duty?' he said to the nearest airman, looking at the clock.

‘About twenty minutes, Sarge.'

‘Where's me bike? I'm off into Chichester.'

Excitement sped him into town. A home of his own. Just wait till he told Peggy. And such a home too, as he discovered when he'd paid the first week's rent and had walked round to see it, just outside the city walls and right in the centre of a quiet terrace facing a green. What could be better?

He couldn't wait to get to London and tell her the news. Good old Megan! he thought. What a friend she was!

That night he wrapped his present into the smallest brown paper parcel he could contrive and tucked it in his tunic pocket, ready to set off as soon as he came off duty the next afternoon. Then he walked down to Vine Cottage to see Megan and thank her.

It was one of the most cheerful evenings he'd spent for a long while, and by the time he finally went back to camp he was in a state of such excitement that sleep was impossible. In a matter of hours he would be with Peggy telling her about their very first home. In three days they could be living in it. She could travel back with him at the end of his leave and they could spend every spare moment together until he got sent to France. Megan was right. It was a Godsend, coming like this, just at the right time, when he needed her more than he'd ever done in his life. He lay in the darkness listening to the sleepers all around him and planning his campaign. He wouldn't tell her straight away. No, he'd keep it and savour it. First he'd give her the scarf and wish her happy birthday and then he'd take her to the pictures and when the lights went down he'd give her a big kiss and then he'd tell her.

But like so many human plans it didn't work out that way.

For a start it was pouring with rain when he arrived that evening, the drops falling so steadily that he was soaked in the short walk from the station to Paradise Row. As he stood on the pavement waiting for her to open the door, the rain trickled from his hair and ran down his face.

‘Oh!' she said, blushing with pleasure at the sight of him. ‘Why didn't you say you was coming? I'm on duty in twenty minutes.'

He kissed her, but briefly because he was so wet and
followed her into the kitchen shaking the rain from his cap. It was a disappointment that she was going on duty but it couldn't be helped. He'd take her to the pictures tomorrow and give her the scarf now. Or maybe he'd tell her the news now before he gave her the scarf. But then he saw the tray.

It was lying on the top of the Morrison shelter table neatly laid out for one with a tray cloth, a cruet set, a cup of tea and a steaming Welsh rarebit. The sight of it made him feel suddenly and extremely angry. Joan was right. She
was
being used by that selfish sister of theirs. No, he wouldn't tell her about the house yet, he'd deal with this Baby business first and get it over with.

‘That your supper?' he said.

She blushed again, this time with embarrassment. ‘Well no,' she admitted. ‘It's for Baby. I was just going to take it up to her. Her nerves are ever so bad.'

‘So that's still going on, is it?' he said, looking at her so fiercely that she quailed before him. ‘Joan told me about it. She's got you on the run good and proper.'

‘No,' she said, feeling she ought to defend her sister. ‘She ain't. It ain't her fault, Jim. Think what she's been through.'

‘Been through!' he said angrily. ‘She got stood up, that's all. And probably no more than she deserved, spoilt little brat. Put that right down!' as Peggy picked up the tray. ‘If she wants to eat she can come downstairs and sit up to the table like everyone else.'

‘She's ever so bad, Jim. Really.'

‘She's ever so selfish,' he corrected, taking the tray out of her hands and putting it back on the shelter, ‘and you're making her worse.'

‘That Welsh rarebit'll get cold.'

‘Let it.'

‘I said I'd be up with it directly.'

‘You won't.'

He was standing between her and the door, looking taller than usual and extremely handsome, his eyes very blue in the fading light of the evening. ‘This has gone on long enough,' he said, ‘and now it's got to stop.'

She was so tired. ‘I must look after her,' she said. ‘She's delicate.'

Her fatigue made him feel angrier than ever. She was all eyes and there was no colour in her face at all. ‘I tell you what I think,' he said. ‘I think you should pack your bags now and come back to Sussex with me and stay with me until I go to France.'

‘How could I do that?' she said wearily, ‘I've got to go on duty.'

‘Bugger going on duty,' he said happily. ‘We've got a house.'

To his immense disappointment she was too weary to respond. ‘What?' she said.

‘A house,' he said, his face blazing. ‘We've got a house.'

‘Where?'

‘In Chichester. It's smashing. I paid the rent on it yesterday.'

‘Oh,' she said, and the word was so flat it made his heart sink to hear it.

‘So you'll pack, won't you,' he urged. ‘You could send a message to the Post. They'd understand.'

‘No,' she said, still speaking in that flat, exhausted voice. ‘I couldn't do that. They depend on me.'

‘So do I.'

‘Not like that, Jim.'

‘Oh come on, Peggy,' he said trying to persuade her. ‘Don't be a clot. OK. Go on duty just for tonight. You can come with me tomorrow. That's reasonable.'

‘I can't. You know I can't.'

‘Why not?'

‘Not with the buzz-bombs. I can't walk off. Not now. Not after all this time.'

‘Oh for crying out loud, why not? Other people do.'

‘Not me,' she said stubbornly.

‘Why not?'

She knew why not in the more instinctive part of her mind but she was too weary to be able to explain. It was a matter of pride. She'd spent so long under fire she couldn't desert now. Not now right at the very end. ‘It's only for a few more weeks,' she said. ‘Mr Mac reckons.'

‘In a few more weeks I shall be in France.'

‘Oh don't say that.'

‘In France. Come on, Peg, don't be such a fool.'

‘I ain't a fool,' she said, with weary pride. ‘I'm a Londoner. I was born in the Tower. I can't run away, don't you see?'

‘There are other Londoners. Someone'ud take your place.'