Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (15 page)

She finished frying the slices of Spam and added them to the tomatoes she’d bottled last summer. There were even eggs this morning as the chickens had finally decided to co-operate, so it was quite a feast. ‘Where’s Jane?’ she asked fretfully as she realised the time was slipping away.

‘Here I am, Auntie Peg. Sorry if I’m a bit late.’

There was a gasp of surprise as everyone turned to greet her, for the long, heavy blonde plait was gone and now Jane sported a very fetching shoulder-length bob. ‘Your hair,’ breathed Sarah. ‘Oh, Jane, your lovely hair. What have you done?’

Jane handed her the neatly plaited hank of hair which she’d tied at both ends with scarlet ribbons. ‘Plaits are for little girls,’ she said firmly. ‘I thought it was time I looked my age.’

Sarah clutched the plait, too emotional to speak.

‘It suits you like that,’ said Rita.

‘It makes you look much more mature,’ said Cordelia. ‘I like it.’

‘So do I,’ said Fran, ‘but it needs a bit of tidying up at the back. I’ll do it after we’ve eaten.’

Jane grinned her thanks and sat down. ‘I feel quite light-headed now the weight of all that hair has gone,’ she said happily. ‘But I suspect I might feel the cold on my neck more.’

Peggy rather liked the shorter hair, for it suited the girl and was more appropriate for her new-found status. She glanced across at Sarah, who was battling to fight back the tears as she carefully placed the plait on her lap. The poor girl really was going to find it hard to accept all these changes.

Breakfast was soon over. After she’d helped to clear the table and wash the dishes, Rita hugged Jane and said a fond goodbye before she shot off to the fire station to ask for time off during her father’s leave.

Fran tidied the ragged ends of Jane’s haphazard haircut, and then gave her a kiss and hug. ‘No hard feelings?’ she murmured.

‘Of course not, Fran.’

‘Good luck then, and don’t forget about us, will you?’ she said warmly before she left for the hospital.

Cordelia drank three cups of tea before she felt able to switch on her hearing aid and join in any conversation, while Ron took himself off to feed the chickens and clean out his ferret cage.

Peggy took Daisy out of her high chair to let her crawl about the floor as Sarah and Jane sat close to Cordelia for the last few minutes of Jane’s time at Beach View. Peggy was feeling very emotional, for another of her precious chicks was leaving, but at least it wouldn’t involve that awful standing about on a station platform this time – Anthony had arranged for a car and driver to take Jane to wherever she was going.

As the clock struck nine there was a rap on the front door, which caused a flurry of barking from Harvey and a panic of last-minute goodbye kisses and promises to write. Ron went to answer the knock while Jane pulled on her coat and hat, and everyone trooped into the hall with Harvey close on their heels.

‘Goodbye, Aunt Peggy,’ Jane said as they embraced. ‘Thank you for giving me such a lovely home – and look after Sarah, won’t you? She’ll find it hard being on her own.’

‘Of course I will, dear.’ Peggy held her close for a moment more and then let her go so she could hug Ron and Cordelia and give Daisy a kiss. Tears blurred her sight as the two sisters embraced and murmured to one another, and then Ron was carrying Jane’s cases down the front steps to the car.

The driver was a girl from the ATS, who organised the cases in the boot to her satisfaction and then opened the passenger door to wait for Jane.

Jane was clearly distressed as she tore herself away from Sarah and went down the steps and into the car. The girl slammed the door, climbed in behind the steering wheel and fired up the engine. As the highly polished car purred down the cul-de-sac, Peggy carried Daisy on her hip and joined the others on the top step to wave goodbye.

Jane looked back once and waved, and then the car was moving into the main road and out of sight.

Peggy saw that Ron was comforting a tearful Cordelia, so she put her arm around Sarah, who could now finally give in to the emotions she’d been holding back for so long. ‘It’s all right,’ she crooned. ‘She’ll be back with us again before you know it.’

The aspirins had started to work by the time Doreen’s train left Bethnal Green, and as she was lulled by the slow, rhythmic sound of the great iron wheels turning, she fell into a doze and only just woke in time to disembark at Knockholt station.

It was a bit of a scramble to get the kitbag down, but the obliging porter took charge of it and carried it outside to where she’d left her bicycle. The bag was cumbersome and far too large for the wicker basket on the front, and she began to fret that she’d never get it home. The porter proved to be inventive, however, and lashed it firmly with sturdy garden twine to the flat metal parcel shelf on the back. Testing it thoroughly, he proclaimed it safe for her short journey.

Thanking him, she put her handbag and Archie’s box in the basket, adjusted the gas-mask box strap across her chest, and slowly set off. The weight of the kitbag unbalanced her a bit, and made every small rise in the narrow country lane feel like a mountain, but her determination to make it back to her lodgings gave her the strength she needed, and before too long she caught glimpses of the house through the distant trees.

Halstead was a quaint village of white clapboard houses, grand mansions and thatched cottages set amongst sweeping farmland and dense woodland on the North Kent Downs. It was peaceful and very quiet on this early March morning, even though it was on the outer reaches of London and the airfield at Biggin Hill wasn’t far away. Doreen had often thought she might like to settle here after the war, for it would be a perfect place to raise her girls.

Her legs were trembling from the effort of that long climb, and she almost fell off her bicycle as she reached the imposing entrance to her billet. Pausing a moment to catch her breath and steady herself, she pushed the bike past the brick pillars and over the gravel to the front step of the large Victorian house. With a sigh of relief, she leaned it against the wall, collected her things from the basket and went indoors to her downstairs room to find some scissors to cut the string and release the kitbag.

It was quiet indoors, for the other four girls were at work up at the Fort, and it seemed the elderly couple who owned the house hadn’t heard her coming in – which was a blessing, for as kind as they were, their attention could sometimes be a little too much, and she simply wasn’t in the frame of mind to be fussed over.

Catching sight of the letters waiting for her on the hall table, she sifted through them and her spirits tumbled further as she saw Eddie’s familiar handwriting. She unlocked her bedroom door and stepped inside, her gaze going immediately to the soft and very tempting four-poster bed. She would have liked nothing better than to crawl beneath the covers, shut out the world and sleep, but she knew there were more important things to do before she could enjoy that luxury.

She tore Eddie’s unopened letters into shreds, deposited them in the waste-paper basket and then opened the floral curtains that were lined with blackout material. Unnerved by the constant reminders of her ex-husband, she looked out through the heavily taped window to the large garden where pearly snowdrops beaded the grass, crocuses peeked from the flower beds, and the first few early daffodils bobbed their yellow heads beneath the trees. The orchard at the bottom of the garden would soon be a mass of pale pink blossom, and the rolling patchwork of fields that stretched away to the horizon would become a sea of rippling wheat. The sight soothed her momentarily, and she knew she should count her blessings, for she’d fallen on her feet being billeted here and the tranquillity of this hidden paradise would surely help her to recover.

She turned from the window and surveyed her room. Unlike some of the lodgings she’d had over the past four years, this room gave her privacy as well as comfort. The furniture was old and sturdy, the carpet a little threadbare but of fine quality, and the four-poster bed was sumptuous with a downy quilt, soft blanket and good linen sheets and pillowcases. There was no doubt about it, she thought, with age comes a few privileges, and unlike the other girls in the house, she didn’t have to share.

Doreen placed the box of Archie’s belongings on the dressing table, her fingers drifting over it like a caress. She couldn’t bear to open it, but just having it here seemed to bring him closer. Likewise with his kitbag, and once she’d released it from her bicycle, she laid it on the ottoman that stood at the bottom of the bed. She paused for a moment in deep thought, then, as the grandfather clock in the hall chimed midday, she realised she couldn’t waste any more time. She needed a bath, not only to soak away the grime of the past twenty-four hours, but to ease the awful ache in her body.

The regulation two inches of water was piping hot and she stayed in it until the skin on her fingers wrinkled and it became unpleasantly cool. As she’d thought, she was covered in bruises, and her neck was still stiff, the headache threatening to return. She swallowed another two aspirin, dressed quickly in clean trousers, shirt and sweater, roughly dried her dark curls with a towel and then went back to her bedroom.

One glance in the dressing-table mirror told her that she looked ghastly – pale and drawn, her brown eyes dull with grief and pain – and she didn’t have the energy to try to hide her anguish beneath a layer of powder and lipstick, so she simply grabbed her bag, overcoat and gas-mask box, locked her bedroom door and hurried outside.

The sun had broken through the cloud, its rays warming her face as she cycled out of the village and began the long, tortuous hill-climb up to the Fort which stood at the very top and overlooked the distant town of Sevenoaks.

Fort Halstead was polygonal in shape, surrounded by a deep ditch and high earthworks. It had been built late in the previous century to form part of a defensive ring of forts around London, and although most had fallen into disrepair, Fort Halstead had been used continuously as a scientific development site through the First World War and in the years following. Eighty new buildings, including cottages for caretakers and scientists, had been constructed in and around the Fort, and the laboratories at its heart were a hub of innovation and activity.

Doreen knew a great deal about what was being developed in those labs, for as a trusted private secretary to one of the scientists, she was privy to the many meetings he had to attend. She found the science fascinating, even though it was often bewildering and complex. The mathematics involved was way above her understanding, but she’d witnessed the development of the 7-inch rockets that were now used by the Royal Navy, and the 3-inch version used by the Army in hundreds of Z batteries which provided the air defence over Britain’s towns and cities. With more rockets being developed and new ideas being tested daily, Doreen was rather proud of the fact that she was working at the forefront of Britain’s highly inventive technology.

She got off the bicycle and pushed it up the last few yards to the footbridge that would take her into the Fort and past the heavily guarded and highly secretive laboratories in which, it was rumoured, the scientists were working on an atomic bomb. As her security rating didn’t give her access to this part of the Fort she didn’t know if the rumours were true or not – even so, she did find it disturbing to think she might be in such close proximity to such a weapon.

Hot and aching from her steep climb, she showed her identification papers to the guard and then rested for a moment to get her breath back. As she stood there, her heart pounding from the exertion, she saw Barnes Wallis hurrying across the quad. He was a frequent visitor, dashing between his various research labs, and Doreen had met him once when she and her boss, Dr Maynard, were invited to Wales to witness the first test of his bouncing bomb.

It had been a quite extraordinary experience to see that large, round bomb drop from the belly of a low-flying Lancaster and bounce across the water of the redundant dam to shatter its wall. The scientists had been jubilant, she remembered. Recently she’d learned that it was now being modified – something to do with the casing being too heavy – and would be tested again, offshore, sometime in the coming months.

Doreen blinked in the bright sunlight which was hurting her eyes and bringing back the pain in her head. Dipping her chin against the glare, she wheeled her bicycle across the quad to the cycle rack and then headed for her office. Dr Maynard would be in his laboratory at this time of day, and although it was doubtful he’d even noticed she’d been away, her supervisor and friend Veronica Parks would certainly be very aware of the fact that she was a day late.

Dr Maynard was the epitome of what everyone expected in a scientist: of average height and in his late fifties, with greying hair that was constantly standing on end – a result of him running his fingers through it in agitation, which Doreen found quite endearing. The lenses of his spectacles were as thick as the bottom of a bottle, and they slid down his nose to perch precariously on the tip.

He was a single man and often forgot to shave, to eat or to sleep – which could cause Doreen some inconvenience, for he would ask her to stay through the night to take copious notes, completely unaware of the time, or the fact that she’d be expected back in the office early the next morning. As he was so absent-minded, Doreen had taken it upon herself to look after him, to provide a clean shirt each day and deliver plates of food at regular intervals, and she hoped her temporary replacement had closely followed the list of instructions she’d left for her so that his routine would be undisturbed.

She stepped into her office and shrugged off her coat, immediately registering the mess of paperwork and drawings that littered her desk and almost buried the uncovered typewriter. Maynard was inclined to leave things everywhere, but the girl who’d come in to cover her work was clearly slipshod and not of the high standard the MOD expected from their administration staff. And as for leaving the office in a mess like this and forgetting to put the cover on her typewriter … Didn’t the stupid girl realise how precious typewriter ribbon was, and how quickly it could dry out? Really, it was too much.