Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (2 page)

And yet amidst all this devastation and change, Peggy was aware of the continuing sense of close community amongst the residents of Cliffehaven. The knowledge that they were fighting a common enemy on the home front while their men were away and their children had mostly been evacuated, meant they embraced the Allied troops, farm girls and factory workers who poured into town to drink at the pubs and attend the dances laid on in the church halls, rolled up their sleeves and got on with digging for victory, making do and mending, and providing endless tea and sympathy as well as practical help to those who needed it.

Beach View Boarding House might not be alone in providing shelter from the storms of war, but Peggy knew that few offered the same care and homely warmth that she was determined to give to her evacuees and lodgers. There had been terrible stories of neglect and abuse over the years, and it was a matter of pride to Peggy that her girls would always be regarded as family. After all, she reasoned, it was what she expected for her own children who were now far from home.

Girls had come and gone over the past four years, and following the departure of Suzy after her marriage to Anthony, there were spare beds to be had at Beach View which she should really address once she’d got through today and had more time to think clearly.

Peggy snuggled under the blankets as Daisy snuffled in her cot at the foot of the bed. Her smile was soft with affection as she turned her thoughts to the girls now sleeping under her roof. Fran had come to live here at the start of the war and was a theatre nurse at Cliffehaven General. With auburn curls and green eyes, she was blessed with an impish sense of humour as well as a mercurial temper, a touch of the Irish blarney, and a talent for playing the violin.

Tomboy Rita had come to Peggy’s after her home had been firebombed, and was now an active member of the local firefighting team, and the driving force behind raising funds to build Cliffehaven’s own Spitfire. And then there were Sarah and her younger sister Jane, who’d escaped from Singapore only hours before its fall to the Japanese, and had come to Cliffehaven in search of their great-aunt Cordelia Finch who had been boarding with Peggy for some years. Their mother and baby brother were safe in Australia, but agonisingly, there was still no news of their father or Sarah’s fiancée, whom they’d last seen standing on the quayside in Singapore harbour.

Cordelia Finch was aptly named, for she was small and delicate and often twittered like a ruffled bird when she got overexcited. Her age was a closely guarded secret, but Peggy suspected she was approaching eighty. Cordelia was adored by all. The influx of young girls seemed to enliven her spirits, and she often had to be helped home after one too many glasses of sherry at the Anchor.

And then there was Ron. Peggy grinned into the pillow as she thought about her father-in-law. He was an old Irish scallywag who followed his own path through life without so much as a nod to convention, but with a great deal of charm and bluster. Yet Peggy knew that beneath those scruffy clothes beat the stout heart of a man who would defend his loved ones to his last breath. His dog, Harvey, was just as wilful and scruffy, and although he slept on Ron’s bed, stole food from the table and generally made a nuisance of himself, he too had proved to be brave and faithful.

As Daisy shifted restlessly in her cot, Peggy tensed, waiting for her to cry out, but she quickly settled again so Peggy relaxed. Daisy was fifteen months old now and teething; consequently the night had been a disturbed one, what with her crying and the RAF flying overhead and making enough noise to waken the dead. At least they’d been spared an enemy raid – the awful weather had seen to that – but the broken sleep had not been at all refreshing, and Peggy was feeling tired.

The sound of the rain and the wind began to seem oppressive as her thoughts turned to the rest of her family. They were scattered, and it might be years before they could all be together once more. It was an ongoing battle, fought every day along with rationing, restrictions, endless queues at the shops, and air raids. The sheer slog of making ends meet and keeping a smile on her face to hide her heartache was beginning to take its toll.

Anne, her eldest, was in Somerset on a friend’s farm with her two small children and younger brothers, Bob and Charlie, while her husband Martin was flying with the RAF, and Peggy had yet to meet her new granddaughter, Emily. Cissy was in the WAAF, driving some bigwig about up at Cliffe aerodrome; her sister Doreen hadn’t visited for years as she was heavily involved with the MOD and therefore rarely in one place for longer than a few weeks. She too must be suffering, thought Peggy sadly, for her two little girls Evelyn and Joyce were billeted down in Wales, and she hadn’t seen them since the start of the war.

And then there was her own Jim, who was in India of all places!

At the thought of Jim being on the other side of the world, Peggy sniffed back her tears and decided she couldn’t lie here any longer feeling sorry for herself. Cordelia was suffering with a cold as well as her arthritis, and Ron had come in very late the worse for wear after a night out with his friends at the Fishermen’s Club. She tossed back the blankets and sheet and slid out of bed to be greeted by the bitter draught coming from beneath the bedroom door and through the badly fitting windows that both Jim and Ron had made a hash of fixing over a year before.

With a sigh of stoic acceptance, she dug her feet into her slippers and pulled on Jim’s thick, warm dressing gown. The day ahead promised to be yet another struggle, for Ron had to be made to look halfway decent before she got him to the Town Hall in time for the ceremony, and he’d made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to co-operate. Judging by the racket he’d made last night, he’d be hung-over as well as grumpy – not that this would be unusual, he’d been grumpy ever since it was revealed that he’d been put forward for a bravery award. Most men would have been delighted, but not Ron, who saw the whole thing as nothing more than an opportunity for the Mayor to show off and therefore a waste of everyone’s time.

She ran her fingers through her dark curls and scrubbed her face with her hands in an attempt to wipe away the weariness and instil a bit of enthusiasm for the day ahead. Doris, her older sister, had made it perfectly plain that she would hold Peggy responsible if Ron put a foot wrong at the Town Hall ceremony, and Peggy knew there was every possibility that chaos would reign if she didn’t take immediate charge of the situation.

Peggy tiptoed up the stairs to the bathroom. Beach View was still quiet at this early hour, although she’d heard Jane leave for the dairy about half an hour ago, and the other girls would soon be stirring. She smiled as she washed and dressed. Jane was turning into a real beauty, and now she’d just celebrated her nineteenth birthday, it seemed she’d grown in confidence and was as bright and lively as other girls her age.

Yet Peggy knew that Sarah had worried about her young sister ever since they’d arrived from Singapore, for Jane had been childlike and perhaps even a little backward then – the result of a nasty kick in the head from a horse – yet life here in Cliffehaven had given her the chance to blossom and mature. However, Peggy had the feeling Jane was becoming restless, that she was finding the work at the dairy a little tedious despite her love for the old shire horses she tended, and now Peggy wondered what was bothering her.

As she finished dressing and hurried back downstairs she fretted that perhaps Jane had become entangled with some young man – after all, there were enough servicemen in the town to turn any girl’s head, and Jane was pretty enough to catch their all-too-roving eyes. She would have to have a quiet word with her when she returned, she decided. For now, she had to bath and dress Daisy, sort out breakfast and deal with Ron.

Ivy Tucker was thoroughly fed up, for it was her only day off from the munitions factory and Doris had got her doing the housework in preparation for the arrival of her new lodger.

She was cross with herself for not standing up to the old cow, but now that Mary, her fellow evacuee and friend, had gone home to Sussex, she’d lost her nerve to answer back. She didn’t usually have any problem with speaking her mind, but Doris Williams was a formidable woman, forever making her feel small and insignificant, and threatening to turf her out if she didn’t toe the line – and Ivy knew she wouldn’t find such a comfortable billet as this one if that happened.

She continued scrubbing the gas oven with some vigour, wanting to get the filthy job done so she could get out of here. Assessing that it was as clean as she could get it, she used scrunched-up newspaper to clear away the last of the grime and then wiped it all down with a damp cloth and fresh paper. Giving the oven door a good polish, she slammed it shut and threw the dirty paper in the waste bin. There was just the floor to mop now and then she could escape.

As she fetched the mop and bucket from the lean-to that served as a laundry room, she began to sing quietly to herself, calmer now that her work was almost over. As she filled the bucket and started to mop the linoleum, her thoughts drifted back to Hackney and the two small tenement rooms that had been her home for almost eighteen years. They might not have been the nicest place to live, and it had been a squash, what with her sharing a room with her three brothers and sister. Yet, despite the daily struggle to make ends meet, they’d been a tight-knit family before the war had intervened and they’d been forced to go their separate ways.

Ivy had been in Cliffehaven for almost nine months now, and although the work at the munitions factory was dirty and dangerous, it paid extremely well. Her three brothers were ratings on the Atlantic convoys, and her sister was a typist working at Admiralty House. Her dad worked for the gas board, so he hadn’t been called up, and her mum spent hours on her feet at the canning factory.

Their tenement block had been destroyed during an air raid in early 1942, and now her parents lived in one room above the Wellington Arms in Shoreditch. No doubt her dad was thrilled to bits to be living over a boozer – it had always been his dream – but her mum would have to keep a close eye on their money, for when he’d had a few too many, he’d insist upon buying rounds for his mates.

Ivy rinsed out the mop and regarded her handiwork. The floor was spotless now, but it would take time to dry, so she opened the back door and stepped outside to have a fag. It was cold but bright, the air smelling of the sea instead of the smoke and smog of those London streets, and Ivy sat on the doorstep, enjoying this brief moment of peace.

‘This floor is still wet,’ snapped Doris from the hall.

‘That’s why I’ve got the door open – to get it dry.’

‘It’s causing a draught, and all my lovely heating is being wasted. Close it immediately and run that drying towel over the floor.’

Ivy bit down on the sharp retort, took a last puff of her cigarette and pinched off the end before putting it into her cardigan’s sagging pocket. She rummaged about in the laundry room for the old worn towel and had just got onto her hands and knees to dry the floor when the doorbell went.

‘That’ll be the new girl,’ said Doris as she patted her immaculate hair and rushed off.

Ivy continued drying the floor, her hopes rising that this latest lodger would be as nice and friendly as Mary had been. She edged across the floor on her knees, ears pricked to try and catch what was being said in the hallway, but their murmur was indecipherable.

She’d almost reached the door into the hall when two pairs of neatly shod feet and slender legs appeared in front of her. Looking up, her spirits plummeted, for the new girl was about her age, but she was fair and elegant with a snooty look on her face. Her clothes were clearly of the best quality; her nails were long and manicured and she was as immaculately groomed and made-up as Doris.

‘Caroline,’ said Doris, ‘this is Ivy Tucker.’

Feeling very much at a disadvantage, Ivy scrambled to her feet, hitched the strap of her dungarees back over her shoulder, and stuck out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet yer, I’m sure,’ she gabbled.

The blue eyes regarded her grubby hand coolly before ignoring it. ‘Caroline Palmer-French,’ she said in the plummy tones of someone who had probably never ventured far from the borders of Kensington until today.

Ivy returned her cool gaze, decided she didn’t like the look of her at all, and realised the feeling was mutual.

‘Caroline will be the hospital administrator’s private secretary,’ said Doris gleefully, like a proud and pushy parent. She turned to Caroline. ‘Ivy works at the munitions factory. It’s a worthy post, but not one that requires much education, so she’s well suited.’

Ivy fumed at this blatant piece of downright rudeness. ‘I can read and write as good as anyone,’ she snapped. She looked Caroline up and down. ‘And the job I do keeps our boys in ammo to fight off Jerry – which is a damned sight more important than typing letters for some pompous prat in an office.’

‘That is
quite
enough,’ rasped Doris. ‘I do apologise, Caroline. But these are difficult times and one cannot choose the sort of girl one has to billet.’

Caroline smirked. ‘I do so admire you, Mrs Williams. It must indeed be frightfully inconvenient.’

‘Please, you must call me Doris,’ she simpered.

Ivy had had enough of this, so she threw the towel in the direction of the bucket and swiped away her bedraggled hair from her sweaty face. ‘I’m off,’ she said.

‘Not until you’ve made us some coffee,’ said Doris. ‘I’m sure Caroline must be very thirsty after that long and tiring journey.’

Ivy looked at the pair of them, knowing there was trouble ahead. She couldn’t help herself. ‘Why, where did she come from, the moon?’

Caroline gave a tinkling laugh which set Ivy’s teeth on edge. ‘Chelsea, actually. And yes, I’d love a cup of coffee – but only if it’s not that ghastly stuff out of a bottle.’

‘We only have the best coffee in this house,’ said Doris. ‘Do come into the drawing room, Caroline. We can be more private in there.’ She shot a glare at Ivy over her shoulder. ‘You know where the percolator is, Ivy. And do be quick about it. I’m sure Caroline would like to unpack and get settled before she has to report in to her office.’