Now the War Is Over (49 page)

Love you
, he mouthed silently and she beamed back at him.

‘Ooh, you look so pretty these days, Melly,’ Dolly said, ‘Doesn’t she, Mo?’

‘Yeah.’ Mo looked at her. ‘She always was, though.’ Which made Melly blush.

‘Nice to see you up and about again, Glad,’ Dolly said. She stubbed her cigarette out in a grey-stained saucer on the table and stood up. ‘You back on the market then, are you?
You don’t want to let this one take over your stall for too long – you might never get it back!’ She reached for the teapot. ‘I’ll go and top this up.’

After tea they all saw Rachel and Gladys off in the car. Rachel had to get back to cook for everyone. She was the one driving now – with her L-plates on. Melly had come
over in the back of the car, clenching her jaw as Rachel rasped the gears setting off. She was used to Reggie’s smooth driving.

‘Dear God,’ Gladys muttered, one hand clasping the side of the seat.

‘There’s no need to be like that,’ Rachel had snapped. ‘I’m getting the hang of it. It always takes me a while to get going. You just keep quiet, both of
you.’

If Tommy could drive, she kept saying, then surely to God she could as well.

They had got there without major disaster, though there was one nasty moment as she stalled turning right across the Pershore Road. Melly was relieved not to be driven back home by her as well.
She said Reggie would bring her later.

She and Reggie went to the little park down behind the house and strolled round the lake, hand in hand in the serene afternoon.

‘I wish I didn’t have to go back,’ Reggie said, his warm hand squeezing hers. ‘I just want to stay here with you.’

‘It’ll soon go,’ she said. ‘And I’ll be here with your mom.’

She didn’t like to admit that it was a relief to her that he was away some of the time. She loved him and missed him but she just wasn’t sure she was ready to live with him day in
and day out yet. Every time she thought about it she had an uncomfortable, shameful feeling, that this was the end of the line. It seemed so wrong to feel that about the man she loved.

‘Melly.’ He stopped her, in the shade of a tree close to the water. Moorhens drifted nearby. ‘You’re so pretty and so . . . Well, nice. You’re my girl. I love you
– I do.’

He pulled her tight into his arms and she wrapped her arms round his waist. She hugged him, her face turned to nestle against his shoulder.

‘Reggie,’ she murmured, feeling the beat of his blood under his warm shirt, smelling his man smell of cotton, sweat, salt. She swelled with love for him. ‘My Reggie.’

‘Won’t you mind?’ he asked. ‘When we’re wed, like – being here with my mom instead of with your husband? It seems wrong.’

Melly knew she had to be careful what she replied. She didn’t want to hurt Reggie’s feelings by saying she really didn’t mind – which was the truth.

‘It’s not nearly as bad as my mom had to put up with, is it?’ she said, looking up at him. ‘In the war. Our dad was away for
years
. And she never even knew if he
was coming back.’

Reggie gazed deeply at her and kissed her briefly on the lips. But he looked troubled.

She reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘And you’re only down the road and I know you’re coming back – or I hope you are!’

‘Oh, I am.’ He grinned then. ‘You can bet I am.’

It wasn’t until Melly had been working for Dorothy Hughes for three weeks that she met Victor Hughes, her husband. That Friday evening she stayed a bit later than usual,
listening to Dorothy play the piano after they had fed the children. As they sat in the front room, they heard his voice from the back of the house.

‘
Dorothy!
’

He sounded peevish, as if he had called before and not been heard.

Dorothy’s hands sprang from the piano as though it had given her an electric shock. A moment later a man’s head appeared round the door of the front room. Mr Hughes was a tall,
long-faced man with thin brown hair and a solemn expression. His brow was moist and there were rings of sweat round his armpits from his cycle home from where he worked in Smethwick.

He looked about to say something abrupt, but he spotted Melly sitting on a chair with Ann on her lap.

‘Er . . .’ He gave a terse nod. ‘Hello?’

‘This is Melanie, dear,’ Dorothy said. Melly could see she was nervous. ‘The girl who comes to help with the children.’

Melly thought she had better stand up and she struggled to her feet, still holding Ann.

‘I see,’ he said, looking her up and down. ‘Did we get references for her, Dotty?’

Melly felt chilled by the way he was looking at her.

‘Well, no, dear, but . . .’

He looked at her disparagingly. ‘You didn’t get
references
? You’ve just handed
our children
over to some . . . Some child who we’ve never seen
before?’

Melly shrank inside. She was insulted and appalled in equal measure. For a moment she felt like crying, but then she thought, he’s not very nice. I don’t like him. If he wants me to
leave, I’ll leave. Sod him.

‘She’s very good,’ Dorothy Hughes said, giving Melly a stricken, apologetic glance. ‘She’s been here three weeks already, Vic, and I’ve no complaints at all.
The children love her. Look how happy Ann is with her. And you did
say
it would be all right . . . We talked about it.’

Melly looked at little Peter. She could see where he got his solemn looks from, but he also seemed quite scared by the sight of his father.

‘Huh,’ Mr Hughes said. ‘Well . . .’ He looked Melly up and down. ‘We’ll be keeping an eye.’

Will you? Melly thought. You’re never here.

‘I’m going up to clean up.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Dorothy said as they heard his feet on the stairs. She went to the piano and in a flustered way cleared her music into the piano stool as if it was a dirty secret.
‘He’s never at his best when he gets home. Hungry, I suppose. I keep saying why don’t you take something to eat before you come home . . . ? He’s very stubborn.’ She
turned to Melly, her eyes wide and anxious. ‘I’m sure everything will settle down, dear, and will be all right.’

‘Melly?’ Tommy spoke to her softly, through the Saturday-morning mayhem in the house. ‘Can I – talk to – you?’

Melly looked at the eager, anxious expression on her brother’s face. Ricky and Alan were roaring about the place, Sandra was singing to herself, Danny and Gladys – who had at last
gone back to the market – were getting ready to go out and Mom was clearing the table with one hand and eating toast with the other. Why on earth was Tommy asking her now, she thought?

‘Knock it
off
, you two!’ Danny turned on the boys. ‘Get out of here – upstairs if you’re gonna carry on like that in here.’

‘They’ll only fight,’ Rachel said through a mouthful of toast.

The boys thundered up the stairs. Sandra carried on with her singing, tuneful but irritating nevertheless.

‘We’ll have to build a cowing wall between ’em,’ Danny muttered, leaning over the table to look at his accounts book. ‘Like that one they’ve put up in
Germany. That’d sort ’em out.’

‘What – now?’ Melly said to Tommy, in between all this.

He nodded. He seemed emotional, desperate in some way. Another of those letters had arrived this morning. From his friend, his pen-pal, he had told them. Someone he met on the picnic when he
went in his three-wheeler.

All the family had started being nosy about the white envelopes that kept arriving over the past few weeks – as often as every other day sometimes. Melly was the only one who knew they
were from someone called Jo-Ann Halstead, because she was the one he asked to post his frequent replies. It was so much easier for Melly to get about, and he liked involving her, enjoyed her
knowing that Jo-Ann Halstead, whoever she was, had captured her brother’s tender heart. They shared the secret between them.

‘All right.’ In truth she was relieved. Gladys wanted her help on the market. Now that Gladys had been back at work for a couple of weeks, building up the stock again and running her
stall, she still expected Melly to come and help.

‘Auntie – you go on with Dad,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in a bit later, on the bus.’

They went outside to get out of the way of Mom and the others and had to keep telling Sandra to go back in and mind her own. Sandra pouted and slammed the back door.

Tommy sat himself in his wheelchair, which Melly pushed out for him, and she perched on the wall at the end of the little lawn. It felt nice, that Tommy wanted something from her.

‘What’s up?’ she asked, once they had got shot of Sandra. ‘Is this about the letters?’

Tommy put his head on one side. Melly saw that her little brother was blushing. A smile broke out over his face.

‘Tom – who is she?’ Melly laughed.

Tommy looked down, blushing even more. ‘I like – her – a lot.’

‘Well?’ Melly said, though her mind was jumping with questions. None of them had ever thought about Tommy having a girlfriend, doing the things other boys did. She found a blush
moving thickly through her own blood as she wondered exactly what Tommy was capable of. Tommy, a man? This was a new thought. And this girl – was she like him? Or was she . . . Normal? She
felt sorry, for not thinking of these things before. And awkward. How were you supposed to talk about this?

‘Why don’t you tell me a bit about her?’ she said, hoping this was a safe way to begin. Already her big-sister protectiveness was taking her over again. Was this girl nice?
Would she hurt Tommy’s feelings?

‘She’s – called – Jo-Ann.’

‘Yes, you said before. Is she your age, Tommy?’

‘Yes. Eighteen – like me. She – had – polio,’ he said. Gradually he explained – about the swimming, the hospital and wheelchair. About Jo-Ann’s family,
her job in the shop.

‘Well, that’s good,’ Melly said carefully. ‘Nice that her dad has a business she can work in.’ She was still wondering what the problem was. ‘So what’s
up, Tommy?’ she repeated.

He gave her a look of naked longing. ‘I – want to – see her. And – she – wants – to see – me.’ He was worked up, almost tearful.

‘Careful – deep breaths,’ Melly said. ‘I suppose Wolverhampton is a bit of a way away.’

Tommy was shaking his head. ‘She said . . . She wrote . . . She’d – come down here. In – her three-wheeler.’

But, he explained, her mom and dad had said he couldn’t see her. That she was not to see him.

‘Why not?’ Melly’s fear for him, her protectiveness, made her instantly angry on his behalf. ‘Why shouldn’t you see each other?’

‘They – don’t let her – do – anything,’ he said. ‘And they – don’t – want – me.’

His face was working, his left arm going more into spasm, as it did when he was mithered.

‘It’s – not – right.’ Melly had never heard such passion in his voice before. ‘She – wants – me. She wants – to run – away. And I
– love – her.’

‘Oh, Tommy.’ Tears rose in Melly’s eyes at the sight of his anguished emotion, at the unfairness of all of it. That he and Jo-Ann were so incapacitated at all; that other
people were ruling their lives.

Tommy explained about Mr and Mrs Halstead, that he had met them, that they hadn’t been nasty to him, not then. They were nice people really, he thought, but they were so worried about
Jo-Ann and what had happened to her, that she was wrapped in cotton wool at all times.

‘Look,’ he said. From his pocket he took out one of the white envelopes, folded in half, and pulled the letter from it. ‘Read the – last – bit.’

Melly looked at the tidy blue handwriting.

‘She sounds nice,’ Melly admitted, handing the letter back, with its signature, ‘
Love Jo-Ann
’, at the bottom. She sounded genuine and brave.

‘Look, they can’t just stop her, can they?’ she said. ‘Not forever. I expect they’re just worried for her.’ She thought for a moment. Dad could take Tommy up
there . . . But that didn’t seem right and she couldn’t see him agreeing to do it anyway.

‘How about if I come with you? We can find a way, somehow, can’t we?’

‘Would you, sis?’ Tommy said desperately. But he did start to look a little more hopeful.

Sitting on the bus into town, Melly thought about the strength of feeling in her brother and remembered herself, young and silly and head over heels in love with Reggie. How
painful it all was. How full of awkwardness and longing. But Jo-Ann sounded as if she really cared for Tommy. Whereas when she was young, Reggie barely even noticed her. He did now, though. A warm,
affectionate feeling filled her. She sat thinking of Reggie, his smiling face, the love in his eyes. By the time she reached the Rag Market she was ready to deal with grumpy Gladys and be ordered
about all day.

On the way in she stopped to see her father but he was already busy. He gave her a wave.

‘Tell Auntie – the Adam and Eve after. A drink’ll cheer her up!’

‘All right.’ Melly knew Dad looked forward to his pints in the Adam and Eve once trading was over and he could chew the fat with some of the other traders from round the markets.

She settled into the day, managing a smile at the man – even more grumpy than Gladys – who sold toys some distance away from them, and at the antics of the crockery seller. She spent
a while talking to a lady who sold tatty knick-knacks, glass vases, brass ashtrays, candlesticks and suchlike.