Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (37 page)

‘Oy, Ivy. Are you with us?’

Her thoughts scattered as she felt the nudge in her ribs. Ruby Clark had very sharp elbows. ‘I were having a nice dream, thanks very much,’ she replied.

Ruby grinned. ‘Yeah, and I bet it were about that fella of yours, and all. He’s a smasher, ain’t he? Mind you, he ain’t as ’andsome as my Mike.’

Ivy liked Ruby and they’d palled up on their first day at the plane factory during their lunch break. Ruby came from Bow originally, but now she lived with her mum, Ethel, in a bungalow just a few hundred yards away from the estate. She’d been working in the tool factory which had suffered the same fate as the munitions one, and when they realised they also had Beach View and Peggy in common, since Ruby had stayed at Beach View before her mum had joined her in Cliffehaven, it was as if they’d been friends for years.

Ruby was engaged to her Canadian chap and wore his ring on a chain around her neck while at work. They were hoping to get married, but government red tape was proving to be a complete nightmare. Mike was good-looking, all right, but Andy was taller and much fitter – but then Ivy was rather biased.

‘Are you going to the dance at the Town Hall tomorrow?’ Ivy asked. ‘Only I thought it might be fun if we made up a four again.’

‘Yeah, sounds blindin’, but we might be a bit late, ’cos me mum’s cooking a special tea.’

Ivy had met Ethel, who reminded her so much of her own mum it made her feel homesick – but she was ever so nice, it was easy to like her. ‘Celebrating something?’

‘Sort of.’ She leaned in closer so she wouldn’t be overheard by the other girls clustered on the nearby benches. ‘She got a letter this morning telling her me stepdad bought it in Tunisia.’

Ivy frowned. ‘You don’t seem too upset about it. Funny thing to celebrate.’

Ruby’s expression darkened. ‘He were a mean bastard, handy with his fists and all, just like the toerag I were once married to. Good riddance to bad rubbish, is what I say. Me mum’s gotta new life here, and if Stan plays his cards right now she’s free, I reckon they’ll be in clover.’

Ivy giggled. ‘Stan’s all right, ain’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ sighed Ruby. ‘He’s a diamond, and I know he’ll never hit her or go off with other women. Just like I know my Mike will always be faithful.’

‘Andy’s the same,’ Ivy replied dreamily.

‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Fat Beryl, who’d obviously been listening in. ‘You’d think you were walkin’ out with Clark Gable and Errol Flynn the way you’re goin’ on about those two.’ She gave a snort of derision.

Ivy and Ruby were immediately defensive. ‘So?’ said Ivy. ‘At least we got fellas, unlike some I could mention.’

‘Some fellas,’ she sneered. ‘One’s only got one eye and the other’s deaf. I wouldn’t fancy either of them.’

‘And they wouldn’t give you the time of day,’ said Ruby. ‘Let alone fancy you, you spotty cow.’

Beryl’s face reddened beneath the awful acne. ‘You take that back, Ruby Clark, before I lump yer one.’

‘Yeah? You and whose army?’ retorted Ruby menacingly. ‘Just you remember what I done to my old man before you start on me.’

Beryl clearly did remember that Ruby had put her late and unlamented husband into hospital for several weeks by hitting him over the head with a heavy skillet. ‘All right, keep yer ’air on,’ she muttered.

Ruby and Ivy simmered down and exchanged knowing looks. Beryl had a huge chip on her shoulder because she was fat, spotty and unpopular. She had a gob bigger than the Blackwall Tunnel and a spiteful tongue, and all the girls did their best to avoid her. Ivy pulled a magazine out of the back pocket of her dungarees and they huddled together, deliberately shutting her out.

‘You might think your bloke is the bee’s knees,’ Beryl said, poking Ivy in the back with a hard finger. ‘But I know things about him you don’t.’

Ivy refused to rise to the bait and continued to look at the pictures in the magazine.

‘You can’t trust any man,’ Beryl continued slyly. ‘They’re only after one thing and if you don’t put out, they’re off.’

Ivy and Ruby exchanged glances. Beryl was clearly on the wind-up and best ignored.

‘You need to keep yer eyes open, Ivy. That fella of yours ain’t all he appears to be.’

Unable to resist, Ivy bunched her fists and turned to face her. ‘What you mean by that?’

‘I mean he can’t be trusted, gel. That’s what.’

Ivy saw the sly look in her eyes and the nasty smirk on her lips, knew Beryl was trying to get the rise out of her, and that she’d succeeded. ‘You don’t know nothing of the sort,’ she snapped. ‘Just because you ain’t got a bloke don’t give you the right to slag off mine.’

Beryl’s eyes were gleeful as she shrugged the comment off. ‘I’m better off on me own without ’aving some toerag two-timing me,’ she replied.

‘Put a sock in it, Beryl. My Andy ain’t a two-timer. He ain’t got the chance, anyway, ’cos we’re together every minute we’re both free from work.’

‘Oh, is that right?’ Her smile was cunning. ‘So he were working last night, then?’

Ivy didn’t like the look of that smirk or the feeling she was getting that perhaps Beryl
did
know something. But she masked it by lifting her chin and challenging her with a glare. ‘He’s been on night shift all week – though what it’s got to do with you, I don’t know.’

‘I don’t care one way or the other,’ Beryl replied. ‘But if he were working last night, as he told you, what were he doing tucked up nice and cosy in the Crown with some blonde piece?’

Ivy felt a dart of fear as she saw the triumph in the other girl’s eyes. ‘It weren’t him,’ she snapped. ‘You got it wrong.’

Beryl’s expression was one of a cat who’d eaten the cream. ‘If you say so. But I know what I saw.’

Ivy just about held on to her fear and her temper. ‘You’re just trying to wind me up ’cos you can’t stand to see other people happy,’ she retorted.

‘It don’t matter to me one way or the other what he’s been up to,’ Beryl said with a smirk. ‘But you’ll soon find out I were right.’

The klaxon went to warn them they had to return to work. Ivy gathered up her things, furious that Beryl had managed to get under her skin, and worried sick that perhaps she
had
been too taken with him to see what was under her very nose.

‘Don’t let her get to you,’ advised Ruby as they walked into the huge hangar. ‘She’s just jealous and likes stirring up trouble. Your Andy’s a good bloke and I’m sure that was all just a pack of lies.’

‘But what if it’s true? I don’t think I could take that, Ruby.’

‘Then tell him what Beryl said and ask him straight out.’ Ruby stopped by the huge racks of tools and pulled out a large drill. ‘Better to know, Ivy. But I reckon you’ll both end up laughing about it. Andy wouldn’t do that to you, I just know he wouldn’t.’ She squeezed Ivy’s hand and went off to her own work area.

Ruby’s words had been a small comfort, but the seeds of doubt that Beryl had sown so liberally were beginning to flourish, and try as hard as she might, Ivy couldn’t dismiss them. She returned to fixing large metal studs firmly into the fuselage, her thoughts skittering over what she should do.

Ask him and maybe have to face an unpleasant truth – or don’t ask him and always be suspicious? Either way, things would never be the same again. There might very well be a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he was at the Crown with another girl – but at the moment she couldn’t think of a single one that didn’t point to the fact that he’d been lying to her.

Doreen had paced the kitchen for some time after Eddie had left, her thoughts chasing one another as she tried desperately to think how she could get that much money together. She knew exactly how much she had in her Post Office account, and it wasn’t nearly enough – and even if she did manage to scrape up the rest, there was no guarantee that Eddie would keep his word and stay out of their lives.

As the clock ticked away on the mantelpiece she realised she’d have to hurry to get to the Post Office before it closed. She ran upstairs to her bedroom and opened her underwear drawer. There beneath the slips, bras, vests and camiknickers were the savings books she’d guarded so jealously over the years. One for her, and one each for the girls.

She slumped down on the bed and flicked through them, her heart heavy at the thought that she would have to take money out of all of them if she was to raise anything close to the amount Eddie was demanding. But she felt quite sick to think that all her hard-earned savings were to be handed over to the deceitful, conniving and utterly untrustworthy Edward Grey – who would no doubt just hand it over to some thug he was in debt to.

Her stomach clenched and the bile was bitter in her throat. She just made it to the toilet on the lower landing before she was very sick. She flushed it away, closed the lid and slumped down. The sweat was cold on her skin, making her shiver as the knots in her stomach began to ease, but she still felt queasy and as if she’d put been through the wringer.

Once she’d got her breath back and felt more able to move about, she checked the time and stumbled into the bathroom to wash her face and clean her teeth. Catching sight of her reflection in the mirror, she grimaced. She looked dreadful – her hair was lank, her face was pale and drawn and there were shadows under her eyes. It was quite shocking that being confronted by Eddie for less than half an hour could reduce her to this.

Angry that she’d let him get to her in this way, she returned to her room and picked up the savings books. There was no alternative but to pay him, but even if she emptied all three accounts, there would still be a shortfall.

Her gaze drifted to the bedside drawer where the last of Archie’s money lay in his wallet. She wouldn’t touch that – couldn’t bear to endure the shame she’d feel if she gave Eddie even one of those pound notes. Besides, there were only five in there after she’d paid for the headstone.

‘He’ll just have to be satisfied with what I’ve got in mine,’ she muttered as she threw the children’s books back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

Running down the stairs, thankful that no one was there to witness her utter despair, she pulled on her coat, snatched up her handbag and the wretched gas-mask box she was sick of carting about, and headed for the back door. Not wanting to bump into the others who might be on their way home in Camden Road, she took the back streets that wound through the houses on the hill and eventually opened out into the High Street.

There was a queue at the Post Office and she tried to be patient, but it was very frustrating when one of the tellers closed his window and disappeared into the back, for it meant the wait would now be even longer. With a sigh of exasperation, she let the chatter go on around her and silently urged the elderly woman manning the solitary counter to get a ruddy move on. This was hard enough without having to prolong the agony.

It was finally her turn, and she pushed the savings book under the grille along with her identity card. ‘I want to close the account,’ she said.

‘That’s a great deal of money,’ the woman said, eyeing the total. ‘I don’t know if we have the funds to do that today.’

Doreen gritted her teeth. ‘But I need it today,’ she said. ‘Surely you keep enough for things like this?’

‘There is a war on, Mrs Grey,’ she said solemnly. ‘And for security reasons we are advised not to keep too much cash on the premises. Also, it is pension day, and that’s where most of it has gone.’

Doreen was aware of the growing restlessness in the queue behind her. ‘Then how much
can
you give me?’

The woman opened the drawer beneath her desk and began to flick through the notes. ‘I can let you have forty.’ She peered at her through the screen. ‘Are you sure you need quite so much, Mrs Grey? The government has, quite rightly, urged us all to save, and a sum like this—’

‘It’s my money,’ said Doreen firmly. ‘And I have a perfect right to take as much as I want.’

The expression hardened with disapproval. ‘Then you’ll have to come back tomorrow for the rest.’

Doreen nodded impatiently and shuffled from one foot to the other as the woman took an age to count out each of the forty notes, and then double-check. As they were grudgingly pushed beneath the grille, she scooped them up and stuffed them in her purse while her book was carefully written in and stamped. ‘Will I be able to have the rest first thing tomorrow?’

‘Lunchtime would be best. Friday’s pay day, and
most
people are only too keen to add to their National Savings Accounts and Government Bonds.’

Doreen heard the condemnation as she took her passbook and identity card. Her face was burning as she walked past the gawping queue and left the Post Office. She felt humiliated and tearful, but most of all, she simmered with anger. Eddie had put her in an impossible position. She dared not call his bluff, because she wouldn’t put it past him to go to Wales and drip poison in Evie and Joyce’s ears – but paying him meant that her plans to go and see them would have to be shelved. As for her dreams of buying a little house after the war, they were ashes.

Peggy had returned to find Beach View deserted, and she’d wondered where Doreen had gone. She’d been doing a lot of walking lately, which seemed to have made her feel better, so she had to assume she was up on the hills with Ron. It was something they’d done together before Doreen had left home for the bright lights of London, and as her leave was due to end soon, she probably wanted to recapture those moments of freedom before she returned to her office.

Cordelia was very tired after their long walk, and they hadn’t made it down to the seafront because Peggy realised she couldn’t possibly manage that hill. She helped her off with her things and settled her into the fireside chair, where she promptly fell asleep. Peggy smiled with deep affection and left her to it.

Queenie meowed and wound herself round her legs, so she gave her a spoonful of cat food and refreshed her water bowl. The kitten purred as she ate, and once she’d finished, she allowed Peggy to give her a bit of a cuddle before she got bored and struggled out of her arms to return to her perch on the shelf.

Peggy pulled on her wrap-round pinafore and began to prepare the chops for everyone’s tea. There weren’t really enough to go round, even though Fran was on lates and would eat at the hospital, so she sliced off some of the leg meat into a fillet and coated everything in a mixture of egg and breadcrumbs. She still had a nice pot of pig fat to roast potatoes in, and there was a lovely cabbage in the larder alongside a few very early carrots.