The Clippie Girls (23 page)

‘And I won’t have it,’ Grace declared, frowning at them over the top of her paper. ‘Not in
my
house.’

‘Where does he live, this Terry?’ Rose asked.

Peggy bit her lip. ‘In a terraced road in Attercliffe.’

When Rose pulled a face, Peggy defended the Price family. ‘His father works in the steelworks and his mother’s very house-proud.’ She didn’t tell them that the Prices’ house was much smaller than theirs. She lifted her head defiantly. ‘His home is rather like the one where the Deetons live.’

Rose glared at her but couldn’t – for once – think of a suitably cutting retort.

Summer seemed a long time in coming; May continued as April had been – very cool and dull. June brought the sun, but the family scarcely seemed to notice. Only Grace took her folding chair out into the back yard and lifted her face to its warmth.

Bob was the first to arrive home on leave towards the end of June. He sat opposite Grace beside the fire, twirling his army cap in his hands.

‘So, young man, how was it?’

‘Pretty tough, Mrs Booth, but I’m with a good bunch of lads, though I shouldn’t think we’ll all stay together when we get our postings.’

‘D’you know where that’ll be yet?’

Bob shook his head.

‘And even if you did – ’ Grace smiled – ‘you couldn’t tell me.’

Bob laughed. ‘Something like that.’

‘Good to see you smile again, lad,’ Grace said, with her customary bluntness. ‘I reckon joining up was the best thing you could have done.’

‘My mam doesn’t think so.’

‘Well, no, she won’t and I can understand why. Just look after yourself for her sake, eh?’

‘I’ll try.’

Grace laid her paper down on her lap and looked directly across the hearth between them. ‘Now, Bob, while we’re on our own, there’s something I want to ask you. I’m being a nosy old woman, I know that, but I have my granddaughters’ best interests at heart.’

Bob didn’t know whether she was talking about one or two of her granddaughters, but he kept silent.

‘We were all sorry about what happened between you and Peggy – I want you to know that – but it’s happened and life goes on.’

‘You don’t think she’ll ever come back to me then?’

‘No, lad, I don’t.’ Grace’s tone was surprisingly gentle. ‘But where you’re concerned it’s Rose I’m bothered about.’

‘Rose?’ Bob was obviously startled.

Grace regarded him steadily with her head on one side. ‘Surely, you must realize how Rose feels about you or have you been so wrapped up in Peggy that you haven’t noticed?’

‘Rose and – and me?’

‘Oh yes, plain as the nose on your face how Rose feels about you. Always has done, I suspect, though she’d never have done anything about it if you and Peggy had stayed together.’

His cap twirled even faster between fingers that were obviously nervous now. ‘Rose,’ he murmured again and the expression in his eyes looked as if a light had been suddenly turned on inside his head.

‘It’s her you’ve come round to see, I take it,’ Grace said pointedly.

‘Er – well – yes. Of course. She’s been a good friend to me since—’ He paused and was thoughtful for a few moments.

‘Bob – you’re a good lad, a nice lad,’ Grace said firmly and added, as only someone of her age and with her wisdom could have done, ‘but it’s time you forgot about Peggy, and you and Rose would make a nice couple. Oh, I know.’ She held up her hand. ‘I’m a meddling old woman, but at least she’d be someone to write to when you’re away and to see when you come home.’

‘Well – yes. That’d be – nice,’ he agreed, with a faraway look in his eyes. Rose, Bob was thinking. If what her grandmother was saying was true, then . . . It’d be nice to have a girl waiting for him back home, to boast about to the other lads and to write to and get letters from her. And Rose was a nice-looking lass. Pretty, though not in Bob’s mind quite as pretty as Peggy was. But he must try to forget about Peggy. She was lost to him. Even her family seemed to have accepted that now. So, when Rose came flying in through the door a few moments later, Bob stood up and smiled at her. ‘Hello, Rose. I’ve got a seventy-two-hour leave. Would you like to come to the pictures?’

The look on Rose’s face left the young man in no doubt that Grace was right. Rose definitely had feelings for him.

Rose’s mood improved overnight.

‘Whatever’s happened?’ Mary asked when she’d heard Rose speak to Peggy almost civilly and they’d both gone out of the door to walk to work together.

‘She went out with Bob last night, that’s what,’ Myrtle said.

‘Really? How did that come about?’

Myrtle shrugged and Grace buried her face in her newspaper, pretending innocence and ignorance by concentrating on reading a piece about Hitler’s surprising invasion of Russia.

Not suspecting that her mother might have had a hand in the new developments, Mary continued to question Myrtle.

‘She came home very late,’ the girl told her mother, gleeful to be able to impart the news. ‘It must have been after midnight. She woke me up. She was singing.’

‘Singing? Oh, my goodness, had she been drinking?’

Myrtle ran her tongue round her lips. ‘I don’t think so; it wasn’t that sort of singing. She was just humming under her breath. You know, as if she was really happy about something.’

‘It’ll make a nice change if she is.’ Mary laughed wryly.

Behind her newspaper, Grace smiled.

Twenty-Eight

Early in September Terry came home again on leave. ‘We’d better make the most of it, Peg. There’s rumours that we might be sent abroad soon.’

‘Oh no,’ she breathed. ‘Where to?’

He tapped her playfully on the nose. ‘Now you know I couldn’t tell you even if I knew, but I don’t. We’ll likely just get our orders at the last minute and be off, though the lads say we get something called embarkation leave.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A last leave before we’re sent abroad because no one knows when we might get home again.’

Though warm in his arms in the back row in a darkened cinema, Peggy shuddered. It sounded so final, ‘a last leave’ as if he might never come home.

‘You will write to me if you go abroad, won’t you?’

Terry shifted awkwardly, ‘I told you, love, I’m no good at letter writing.’

‘But just a line or two, just to let me know you’re safe. Please.’

‘All right,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘Listen, Peg, my mate Billy down the road from us ses we can use his place to be on our own.’

‘How – I mean, aren’t his parents there?’

Terry shook his head. ‘His mam died four years ago. There’s just him and his dad and he works nights at the factory. So we could have the place to ourselves.’

‘Where’s Billy then?’

Terry grinned. ‘At one of his girlfriends’. I reckon he spends more nights away from home than he does in his own bed.’

‘Oh, Terry, you know I’d love to, but – but I don’t know. It seems to make it all sordid, somehow.’

Terry was silent for a moment, but then he smiled gently and traced the line of her cheek with his finger. ‘All right, sweetheart, if you’re not happy about it, we won’t go there. Tell you what, I’ll splash out and book us a hotel room, shall I? Would that be all right?’

‘No, that’s even worse, facing the knowing looks of all the hotel staff.’

‘You could wear a wedding ring.’

‘Then they’d wonder why we weren’t in our own home.’

‘I could say it’s a special occasion. Your birthday or something.’

Peggy bit her lip. She so longed to lie beside him, to have his strong arms around her, to have him make love to her again . . .

‘All right, we’ll go to Billy’s place,’ she agreed at last, ‘but only if you can be sure we don’t bump into him or his dad. I’d be so embarrassed.’

Terry kissed her. ‘I’ll make sure.’

So, on the last night of his leave, Terry took her to his friend’s house. Billy had gone to a lot of trouble to make his small bedroom an idyllic love nest for them. He’d put clean sheets on his single bed, fresh flowers in a vase on the dressing table and two candles to give soft, romantic lighting. He’d even treated them to a bottle of sparkling wine.

‘Sorry I can’t run to champers, mate,’ he’d written on a note beside the bottle, ‘but enjoy.’

‘Isn’t that sweet of him?’ Peggy said, as she read the note out to Terry.

‘He’s a good sort, old Billy. We’ve been friends since when we was kids at school. I was never very good at school. Billy used to help me a lot.’

‘When am I going to get to meet him?’

‘Oh now, I don’t know about that.’ Terry laughed, pulling her to him. ‘He’s a devil with the ladies. I don’t reckon I could trust him with you, even if he is my best mate.’

Peggy put her arms around him and kissed him. ‘You trust
me
, don’t you?’

‘Of course, but I may be gone a long time.’

‘But we’ll write to each other . . .’

Terry’s answer was to silence her with his eager mouth. He picked her up and carried her to the bed.

Peggy was lonely after Terry had gone and so too was Rose now. Her friendship with Bob seemed to be developing into something more – just as Rose had secretly hoped – but she was determined not to rush him. She wrote to the address he had given her and, much to her delight, Bob wrote back faithfully every week. But there was no word from Terry. Happier now with her own hopes beginning to come true, Rose thawed a little towards her sister. Deep down inside – though she would never admit it openly – she realized her own good fortune had followed on from the decision Peggy had made. If Peggy had still been going out with Bob, Rose would have had no chance.

‘Why don’t you go round and see Terry’s family? You know where he lives, don’t you?’

Peggy bit her lip. ‘I don’t think I’d be welcome.’

‘Why ever not?’

Peggy hesitated before saying, ‘Because he’s got a similar situation to the one I was in. There’s a family who live next door to the Prices – have done for years – so they’re all friends. You know, the fathers go to the pub together, the mothers are in and out of each other’s houses all the time and the two daughters are best friends.’

‘And?’

‘Terry and his best mate, Billy, who lives down the road from him, used to go out with the two girls as a foursome – just as friends. But the girl next door – Sylvia, her name is – read more into it than Terry ever meant. Just like,’ she added bitterly, ‘Bob did with me. Rose, we never meant to hurt anyone. It just seems that boys and girls can’t be
friends
.’

‘No,’ Rose said slowly, ‘it does seem that way.’ There was a pause before she added, ‘Why don’t you write to him? He might write back if he got a letter from you.’

‘He wouldn’t give me an address to write to.’

‘That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’

Peggy shrugged, but said nothing. She was close to tears.

‘I know, why don’t you ask his mate, Billy?’

‘I could, I suppose,’ Peggy said slowly. ‘But I’ve never even met him.’

‘You know where he lives, though, don’t you?’

Peggy avoided meeting her sister’s gaze. She nodded but did not explain how she knew.

‘Well, then,’ Rose said, ‘go and see him.’

It was a reasonable enough suggestion, but Peggy shied away from it. She was embarrassed to meet Billy, but at last when no word came from Terry and Rose continued to receive a letter every Wednesday morning without fail, Peggy plucked up her courage and decided to go to Billy’s home.

Just over a month after she had said goodbye to Terry and there was still no word, Peggy took the tram to the part of the city where he lived. She hardly recognized it in the daylight – she’d only been there with Terry twice, once to his home and the other time to Billy’s, but she’d made a mental note of the name of the street and the numbers of the houses. As she walked down the street, she kept her face averted from number eleven, where the Price family lived, and even more so from number nine, where she knew Sylvia Thomas lived. Thank goodness, she thought, that Billy lives right at the other end of the row of terraced houses and on the opposite side of the road.

As she reached number forty-six, she hesitated before knocking on the door that led directly on to the pavement. A rather large woman was donkey-stoning the doorstep of the house next door. She glanced up and grinned toothlessly at her. ‘Now then, lass, you lookin’ for that scallywag, Billy Parkin?’

The woman tried to get up, but when she seemed to have difficulty, Peggy stepped forward at once to help her. ‘Ta, lass. Eh, I’m getting too old for scrubbing me step. Now then, let’s have a look at you.’ The woman squinted at her and then smiled. ‘A’ you one of young Billy’s fancy pieces?’

Peggy shook her head. ‘No, I – I just wanted to ask him something about a mutual friend. That’s all.’

‘Oh, aye.’ The woman sounded very disbelieving. Then, as the cogs in her mind began to whirl – Peggy fancied she could almost hear them whirring – the woman smiled. ‘Oh ah, I know who
you
are. You’re young Terry’s fancy piece.’

Now Peggy could not deny it and felt herself blushing as the woman went on, ‘Oh aye, talk of the street it’s been, since he threw Sylvia over for you. A clippie, aren’t you?’

‘Er – yes.’

‘Aye well,’ the woman nodded knowingly. ‘We all know a thing or two about you young clippies . . .’

‘Whatever you’ve heard,’ Peggy began to protest, ‘it’s not true. Terry didn’t—’ But her words were cut short by the door of number forty-six flying open and a young man with tousled fair hair, and dressed only in trousers and a vest, grabbed her arm and pulled her unceremoniously into the house.

‘I heard what the old busybody was saying through me bedroom window,’ he said, slamming the door. ‘I ’spect half the street heard. Nosy old parker.’ He paused and looked more closely at Peggy, his bold gaze taking in every detail. A slow smile spread across his face. ‘Well, I’ll hand it to Terry, he’s picked himself a corker and no mistake.’

Peggy smiled. ‘Ta very much, I’m sure. You must be Billy.’

‘The very same. Come on in. I’ll make us a cuppa.’

‘Is your dad in?’ she asked nervously, following him through the front room into which the front door had opened.