Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (18 page)

‘I say, jolly good show,’ said Bertie as he rubbed his hands together. ‘Cut the cards for dealer then, Jack.’

Peggy caught Sarah’s eye and they shared a grin. Life was rarely normal these days, but now and again there were moments like these that helped dispel the gloom.

At long last the sound of the aircraft fell silent and the all-clear rang out. With a sob of relief, Doreen crawled quickly from under the desk and switched on the light. She didn’t know how she’d managed to hold her nerves together, but she had – and even though it was clear that the events in London had affected her far more than she’d realised, at least now she knew she had the strength to combat the terrors.

‘How’s your head?’ asked Veronica as she brushed away the dust from her skirt and picked up her walking stick.

‘It’s fine,’ Doreen fibbed. ‘A good night’s sleep and I’ll be as right as rain.’

Veronica regarded her sharply. ‘Well, if you’re sure, but I really do think you should take a couple of days off.’

Doreen was in no mood to argue, so she didn’t reply. She reached for her handbag, coat and gas-mask box. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Ronnie. And thanks for holding my hand through the raid. I really appreciate it.’

The door opened and Dr Maynard came in. ‘There you are,’ he said, running his fingers through his tousled hair. ‘Have you finished those notes?’

Doreen picked up the folders and handed them to him.

He flicked through each one and then shoved them under his arm. ‘Get your notebook, Doreen. The meeting’s in five minutes.’

‘No, Dr Maynard,’ said Veronica firmly. ‘Doreen will not be taking minutes of the meeting. I’ll get someone else to do that.’

‘I don’t want someone else,’ he said stubbornly, his myopic gaze magnified by his thick lenses.

‘Doreen is exhausted and grieving,’ said Veronica. ‘She needs to go home. I’ll do the minutes.’

‘Ronnie, there’s no need—’

‘There’s every need, Doreen. If you don’t rest you’ll make yourself ill. Now go home, and I don’t want to see you until tomorrow afternoon. Is that clear?’ Before Doreen could protest, Veronica had snatched up a notebook and pencil and steered a bewildered Dr Maynard out of the office.

Doreen followed them out then headed for the side door. Veronica was a stalwart friend and she had a great deal to thank her for. In truth, the thought of taking notes at that meeting was more than she could have coped with right now.

She took a deep, restorative breath of the cold night air and looked up beyond the silver barrage balloons to the infinity of the star-studded sky. There was no sign of the fierce battles that had been waged there only minutes before, just a sense of timelessness – a feeling that although terrible things were happening down here, the heavens would never change. She found that thought comforting.

She wheeled her bicycle to the gate and wished the guard goodnight before setting off down the hill to Halstead village. The tyres hummed on the tarmac as the mudguard rattled and the wicker basket jiggled her bag and gas-mask box about. The little lamp was so dim that she hadn’t bothered to switch it on, and anyway, she knew every twist of the road. She felt the cold rush of air sting her face as the bicycle raced along, and then she was riding through the trees that almost met above the lane, the starlight and pale moon dappling the way before her.

On reaching her billet, she propped the bike against the wall, quietly opened the door and tiptoed into the hall. She could hear the other girls chattering in the kitchen, but she was in no mood to join them. No doubt they would wonder at her continued absence, for she was usually very sociable, and had excitedly told them all about her planned trip to London. It was better to avoid their questions and keep herself to herself for a while until she felt stronger and more able to cope.

Once she’d gained the sanctuary of her room, she leaned against the door for a moment to catch her breath, and then kicked off her shoes and padded across the floor to the window. She would leave the curtains open tonight, she decided. There was enough light from the stars to see by, and she needed the reassurance of those vast and unchanging skies to counter the claustrophobia that still lurked within her and was so very close to breaking through again.

Doreen let her clothes drop to the floor and pulled on her soft, comforting nightdress which could never be called anything but practical. Then she stood for a moment looking down at the box of Archie’s effects. She traced her fingers over the simple cardboard box, knowing what must be in there, but not yet ready to see or touch the intimate possessions that were so much a part of him and who he was.

Turning towards the bed, she pulled back the sheet and blanket and hauled the kitbag from the ottoman. Once it was positioned to her satisfaction, she climbed in beside it and held it close so she could breathe in the last tangible scent of the man that she’d loved.

Peggy was absolutely thrilled to find several airgraphs from Jim in the letter box that Friday morning, and as there were two for her, she was impatient to read them. However, there was Daisy to see to and breakfast to organise first, so she suppressed her frustration and got on with her morning chores.

Fran left for her shift in theatre and Sarah headed off for her long walk over the hills to her WTC office. Rita was back in her trousers, heavy boots, First World War flying jacket and helmet: she was planning to take her father out to the race track that she’d helped to rescue from disuse. There was to be a motorcycle meet on Sunday, all proceeds going towards the building of yet another Spitfire, so she was outside fiddling with the bike to ensure it was in tip-top condition.

Having read his airgraph from Jim and stuffed it in his pocket without sharing what it said with anyone, Ron stumped off to her bedroom. He had finally decided to do something about the ill-fitting windows in there, and now he was hammering something with great vigour, much to the distress of Cordelia, who was suffering from a hangover.

‘I swear he’s doing that deliberately to get his own back,’ she muttered. She turned off her hearing aid and opened the morning paper.

Peggy thought that was rather unfair, but didn’t bother to reply as Cordelia wouldn’t be able to hear her anyway. At least the windows would be mended – that was one job less to do around the house – but it was very odd that Ron hadn’t let her read his letter, and she wondered what Jim had written that Ron didn’t want her to see.

Stifling her curiosity, she picked up Daisy and cleaned her face before settling her into the playpen with a collection of toys and rag books while Harvey kept guard by stretching out on the floor beside it.

Peggy sat down at the kitchen table, and to the accompaniment of hammering and the odd bit of swearing from Ron, she opened the earliest of her two airgraphs. They were minute, barely the size of a postcard, and Jim had crammed so much on the page that it was very difficult to read his tiny, cramped writing.

‘Good grief,’ she muttered as she read about the cross-bred three-week-old puppy Jim had taken on. ‘As if he hasn’t got enough to worry about.’ She smiled as she read that he’d called it Patch, for that had been the name of the old Irish setter they’d had when they were first married.

She read on to discover that Jim was having a fine old time, going to the pictures and eating out at Chinese restaurants of all things. But it seemed these long days of leisure were about to come to an end, for he was leaving the following day, although he couldn’t tell her where he was going.

He’d managed to sneak the puppy on board the train without having to pay full fare for it, and it sounded as if he had had great fun with the native servants and their families during the journey, for he had ended up wearing a turban. Rationing was clearly not a problem – they’d had plenty of tinned food and eggs – and he and his mates had eaten like lords in their first-class carriages.

Jim continued that he’d ‘borrowed’ an army issue primus stove from a chap in Signals and had set himself up as a chef, which he knew would make her laugh, but his sausage, egg and chips had proved very popular. During the journey they’d stopped off at all sorts of interesting places; at one point two of the men went missing and Jim had been sent to look for them in the grog shops of a bazaar which he’d found both fascinating and very strange.

As they changed trains and then went by truck, Jim had continued to use the primus he’d filched, and because Patch had nearly pegged out after getting fish poisoning, he’d had to feed him on boiled eggs and bully beef to get him well again. The surplus of eggs they were all eating was having an unfortunate effect on their digestive systems and sleep was accompanied by the trumpet blasts of much farting.

Jim told her he loved and missed her and that he really looked forward to her letters. He signed off SWALKxx.

Peggy blinked back the tears and reached for the second airgraph. At that moment Rita began to rev her motorcycle engine and Ron shouted abuse at a stubborn something-or-other that wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do, and this was followed by a volley of heavy hammering and then a loud cry of pain. She sighed and shook her head. If she’d been hoping for a bit of peace then she was in the wrong place.

The second airgraph had been written almost two weeks later even though it had been sent at the same time, and it described the hellish journey by roads that crumbled beneath the trucks’ wheels and meandered up steep mountains, through jungles and across deep ravines on bamboo bridges that swayed alarmingly and didn’t look at all safe. The teeming rain not only cut visibility to the length of the truck bonnet, but raised the humidity to an unbearable degree. He’d been bitten to pieces by mosquitoes, and found leeches on himself and Patch after swimming in rivers – but he’d seen elephants working on timber, tiger skins for sale in the bazaars, and had slept in wooden huts on the side of mountains surrounded by tea plantations.

He had finally arrived at the camp where he would be stationed until further notice, and his home was a basha – a bamboo hut – which he was to share with his mate Ernie. He’d managed to ‘win’ a tarpaulin and a pair of charpoys (beds) for them both, and had fixed himself up with chairs, torches and a couple of nice rugs so they could sit outside at night beneath the makeshift tarpaulin porch in comfort.

He didn’t think much of the commanding officer, who was inclined to lecture the men without showing a modicum of common sense – and it was clear that the dislike was mutual. The motor repair shops were in a terrible state, and Jim was disgusted to find that the native mechanics were untrained and, in his opinion, basically useless and lazy. But he was sure that once all the stores had been sorted, he could begin to train them up and start work on repairing the broken-down motors. The rough terrain, the humidity, rain and heat were no friends to anything mechanical – or human – and Jim was in constant fear of getting malaria.

He sent kisses to Daisy and Cordelia, and signed off in his usual fashion.

Peggy sighed deeply and slipped both airgraphs back in their envelopes. She just hoped to goodness Jim was taking care of himself, for malaria could be a killer, and it sounded as if he’d been well and truly bitten by those mosquitoes. She’d read somewhere that the water in those foreign places wasn’t fit to drink either, because people used the rivers like lavatories. She gave a shudder at the thought of those leeches, and then turned her mind to other, rather more pleasant things.

Daisy was getting bored and throwing her toys out of the playpen at Harvey, so she took her out and let her crawl and stagger about the kitchen floor while she tidied her hair, found her outdoor shoes, and took off her wrap-round pinafore. Cordelia had taken refuge from the noise in her bedroom, but Rita had stopped revving the engine and Ron’s hammering had fallen silent as well, so Peggy decided that a cup of tea was in order before she faced the queues at the shops.

As she waited for the kettle to boil she heard a knock at the front door and a moment later the sound of Ron’s voice. He appeared in the kitchen nursing a bruised thumb, closely followed by Jack Smith. ‘You must have smelled the tea,’ she said after greeting him.

‘Never mind the tea. Look at my thumb,’ groaned Ron.

Peggy could see that it was probably very painful, so she held it under the cold tap for a while and then hunted out a couple of aspirin. ‘You’ll live,’ she said with a soft smile.

‘Ach, to be sure I will,’ he grumbled. ‘But ’tis awful sore, so it is, and a drop of brandy would indeed make it a whole lot better.’

Peggy raised an eyebrow. ‘Honestly, Ron, you’re worse than Daisy. Do you want me to kiss it better and put a plaster on it?’

‘Humph. Come on, Harvey, we’re off to the Anchor where a man can get real sympathy as well as a drop of brandy,’ he muttered. ‘And what sort of thanks do I get for all the trouble I’ve been through this morning?’ he continued as he stomped down the cellar steps, grabbed his long poacher’s coat and headed for the back door. ‘Nothing, that’s what, and to think that I …’

Peggy didn’t hear the rest of it, for Ron’s grumbling was lost in the roar of a revving motorbike engine. ‘He likes a drama, does our Ron,’ she said brightly to Jack. ‘But he’ll get over it.’ She poured the tea. ‘Now, before you go and see Rita, there’s something I’d like to say to you.’

‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Of course she is. Although she’s worried sick over that young man of hers, and has been rather upset that you haven’t bothered to write much in the past three years.’ She regarded him steadily and saw the colour rise in his face. ‘It’s not good enough, Jack,’ she continued. ‘Poor little Rita has had a great deal to contend with since you enlisted, and the least you could have done was write regularly and perhaps telephone occasionally.’

He shuffled his feet. ‘I’ve been very busy,’ he hedged.

‘I bet you’ve not been too busy to go to the pub, or cinema, or attend the dances that have no doubt been laid on for the servicemen in your area.’

Peggy noted how he refused to meet her gaze and knew she’d struck home. ‘I’m fully aware of how much you care for her, Jack, and of course I’m only too happy to mother her, but that doesn’t mean you can just hand over all responsibility for her and go on your merry way. She needs
you
, Jack. You’re her father, her only flesh and blood, and that’s the most important thing – especially at times like this.’