Daisy's Secret (51 page)

On her days off, Daisy would leave Percy in Clem’s capable hands, set a pie on the dresser for them to warm in the oven later while she and Florrie went off to the Alhambra or the Pavilion Theatre to see a show. There were no evacuees now in Keswick, they too had all gone home. Even Megan and Trish had finally made a tearful and reluctant farewell, promising faithfully to keep in touch. Daisy wasn’t sure which of them cried the most, it felt awful to say goodbye.

‘I don’t know how we’ll manage without you, Daisy.’

‘You must come every summer for a holiday.’

‘Oh we will. We will.’

They wrote every single week, without fail, always looking forward to their summer break at Lane End Farm which sometimes stretched to months at a time when their mother wasn’t coping too well. She’d married her sailor and produced several more children, so often welcomed a break from the two eldest.

And if, deep down, Daisy was lonely and longed for what-might-have-been, she gave no indication of it. She didn’t blame Harry for the decision he’d made, knowing she’d hurt him badly but the longing for him was a living ache in her heart.

He came with the thaw in late spring of that year. The ice and snow had melted save from the highest peaks, and the Herdwicks were keeping the fresh new grass close cropped as a bowling green. The leaves in the hedgerows on the lane up to the farm were unfurling all pink and new and soft, the woods behind the barn an azure lake of breathtaking blue. Daisy saw the figure in the distance and knew at once it was him. Every instinct alerted her senses and long before she could see his face she was running, galloping, jumping over nettles, racing to reach him. She flung herself into his arms on a breathless cry of exultation, and he swung her round, laughing and hugging her.

She didn’t take him immediately to the farm but walked him up Blease Fell, out onto the ridge of the saddle to Foule Crag looking down over Sharp Edge to Scales Tarn below; a place where they could be alone on the top of the world with a view not only over all of Lakeland but to Silloth where they had spent their courting days, to Barrow where the bombing had been at its worst and many young airmen, colleagues of Harry, had lost their lives. But also further afield, to Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and beyond. It was almost like being given a vision of their past and future all in one, for both knew in their hearts that having now found each other, they could never again bear to part.

‘Are you married?’ he asked at last, when their first passion had been sated and he could bear for a moment to release her.

Daisy shook her head. ‘Percy thinks that we are. He’s not quite right in his head. Being blown up on the ship messed it all up. His needs are simple and don’t include anything . . . anything physical. But he has to be carefully watched and he needs me, Harry. Apart from anything else he adores Robbie, lives for him. The pair are inseparable. I can’t leave him.’

‘And I can’t leave you.’

‘I won’t allow you too, not again.’

‘I was wrong. I shouldn’t have judged you so harshly. You were merely a girl, little more than a child. I’m sorry Daisy. Can you forgive me?’

‘You’re here. The war’s over. That’s all that matters.’

They sat and talked, and loved for hours. They lay cradled in a fold of the mountain and it was here, in Blencathra’s embrace, that Daisy gave herself to the man she had always loved, and would ever love. Much, much later, she took him home.

‘See who’s come to visit us, Percy,’ Daisy said, leading Harry into the kitchen by the hand.

Percy turned trusting, excited eyes in the direction of the newcomer. ‘Who is it, Daisy? Who have you fetched for me?’

‘This is Harry. An old friend of mine I’d like you to know.’

‘Are you stopping with us, Harry?’

‘I am,’ Harry said. ‘If you’ll have me.’

‘Oh, aye,’ Percy said. ‘We welcome friends here, don’t we Daisy? We love em all, isn’t that right?’

‘It is, Percy. Everyone is welcome at Lane End Farm, especially old friends. Now eat up your tea then you can listen to Henry Hall’s Music Night. You always enjoy that, don’t you, love? And Harry and I will sit here and talk for a bit.’

The strength of Daisy’s personality came across forcibly on the tape, her clear tones bridging the years with her memories. ‘
And so Harry was returned to me, just as Robbie was. I have been a most fortunate woman. Percy lived with us quite happily till he died in 1956 of pneumonia. Harry and I meant to marry after that, could have done so, I suppose. At first we didn’t for fear of upsetting Robbie and then as the years slipped by there didn’t seem any point. It became almost a feeling between us that we might spoil our good fortune if we did. Then Harry became ill and died in June 1969, aged 51, leaving me a widow in my heart at least. If the gossips sometimes suspected the truth about our menage á trois, I turned a deaf ear. We kept our own counsel and did what was best, for Percy, for Robbie, for each other. People must judge us as they think fit, bearing in mind the cards we’d been dealt.

I deeply regret that the facts were revealed to Robert in such a cold, unfeeling way. Poor Florrie, managing to cling on to the remnants of her misery to the end. And even more sorry that it forged such a wedge between us he couldn’t bear to listen to the truth. It’s a terrible thing to accuse your own mother of being a liar but Rita was. We don’t know, we shall none of us ever know for certain, if Robert was the child I gave birth to. Nevertheless, so far as I am concerned he is my dearly beloved son, and always will be. I have no regrets and no more secrets. They are all told.
’

Laura was quite alone, resting in her room on her first evening home, as she listened to the fifth and final tape. Afterwards, she smiled as she wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘So your secrets are now all told, Daisy. Thank you for sharing them with me. Robert understands now, I think, that you loved him. And I hope you know that in his heart he is reconciled with you at last. Perhaps you will forgive us both now for our shameful neglect. I’d like to think my quest has achieved that at least, in thanks for all you have given me.

A Sneak Preview of For All Our Tomorrows

9780956811912

‘An enthralling wartime page-turner.’

Historical Novel Society Review on
For All Our Tomorrows.

The oranges rolled across the narrow street, bouncing on the cobbles and bumping seductively against the feet of the two young women. Children were running helter-skelter in the Cornish sunshine, giggling with excitement, eager to catch one of these glorious golden orbs as they were tossed and rolled with such reckless generosity.

Gasping in amazement, the younger of the two women snatched one up, to sink her pretty white teeth into the flesh.

‘This is wonderful!’

Juice spurted, running down her chin to leave little orange blobs on the bodice of her print frock as she greedily stuffed segments of fruit into her mouth. Not that she appeared to care one bit, nor that her expertly coiled, soft auburn hair had shaken loose from its pins as she’d run down the steep hill of Lostwithiel Street. All she wanted was to keep pace with the trucks, jeeps, gun carriers and goodness knows what else which were parading through Fowey town, and catch another of these glorious fruits.

She lifted her face to the grinning man high above her in his vehicle, and laughed.

Her sister too was laughing as she chased one orange, clearly heading for the town quay, while tossing a second to the child running excitedly beside her.

Other women were doing exactly the same. After four years of war, many of the children had never seen such a thing in their lives before and their mothers had almost forgotten the delicious, bitter-sweet taste.

Nor had they ever seen men like these.

These men didn’t carry the weariness of war on their shoulders, nor were they dressed in utilitarian battle dress that didn’t quite fit. Even their vehicles were blazoned with stars and nicknames such as ‘Just Jane’, ‘Lucky Lucy’ and ‘Cannonball’. These men were fresh and smart and young, bristling with sexual energy which not a girl or woman in the crowd didn’t recognise as such.

Bette Tredinnick certainly did. Her hazel eyes were teasingly provocative as she tore the skin off the fruit with her teeth. ‘More please. Give me more!’

‘What’s it worth, honey?’ the marine mischievously asked her.

‘Name your price,’ Bette shouted back.

‘Hon
,
the captain would kill me with his own bare hands if he heard me make such a suggestion in a public place.’

Bette made a show of innocence as she shielded her eyes against the sun and gazed back along Fore street in the direction of the jeep that was leading the parade. ‘Take a chance. He isn’t listening and I’m open to all reasonable offers.’

‘See you later then, sweetheart, down by the quay.’

‘I’ll be there,’ she called, just as his vehicle swept away to be swamped by the crowd.

Sara Marrack, having made sure that both her children were each provided with the delicious treat, began to delicately peel her own orange, for once making no comment about her younger sister’s bold flirtatiousness but laughing with her, enjoying this unexpected holiday along with the rest of the flag-waving townsfolk.

Bette should be in their mother’s hairdresser’s shop, cutting and styling, and herself doing chores at the Ship Inn. But women in curlers were openly joining in the fun and the pub was fortunately closed till lunch time, so here they were, along with everyone else, stealing time off work to witness the arrival of these American marines.

They’d come by train only days ago, arriving at Fowey station in the pouring rain on a gloomy autumn day. Now the sun was shining and everyone had turned out to give them a hearty welcome.

There had been times when no one had quite believed that this moment would ever come, in spite of the preparations made in recent months by the Construction Battalion, the Sea Bees as they were called, whose task it was to prepare quarters for the expected friendly invasion. They’d erected rows and rows of Nissen huts up at Windmill, a field high above town, cleared one or two beaches of mines and coils of barbed wire so that training for some operation or other could safely take place.

No one quite knew what that might be, but it had something to do with all this talk of the Second Front.

Sara didn’t care that there were jobs she should be doing, floors to scrub, beer pumps to flush out, or that when Hugh returned from his regular weekly trip to the brewery he would take her to task for neglecting them. What did it matter if she got a bit behind for once? This was an historic day for the town. Even the teachers recognised it as such, and had honoured it by closing the school and allowing their pupils to run down the hill to meet these new arrivals who had come to help win the war.

None of the other businesses in town were doing much trade either. The women who, moments before, had been queuing with their empty shopping baskets outside the greengrocers, hoping for half a cabbage or a turnip or two for the stock pot, were now revelling in the acquisition of much choicer fruit. Children no longer had their noses pressed against Herbie Skinner’s ice-cream shop window.

Even an elderly man in the process of being fitted for a new suit at Williams the tailors, stood grinning on the pavement, uncaring of the pins holding it in place.

The townsfolk of Fowey had long since grown accustomed to disruption, to anti-aircraft guns, to the boom across the mouth of the River Fowey which had to be negotiated to allow for the passage of friendly shipping. They no longer paid any heed to Pillboxes and searchlights, and took for granted the activities of the river patrol on constant look-out for spies and saboteurs. They accepted the need for muster points and fire wardens, the ARP and all manner of other defence measures deemed necessary in case the posters plastered all over town warning of the threat of invasion, proved to be correct.

IF THE INVADOR COMES, screamed the headline. WHAT TO DO – AND HOW TO DO IT. STAY PUT was the chief message, instructing civilians not to block the narrow Cornish lanes which would need to be kept clear for military movement, for OUR OWN BOYS TO COME TO YOUR AID.
 

But it was the American marines who had come with their amphibious craft, rolling into their small town as if they owned the place. They were now the occupying force and the people of Fowey couldn’t believe their luck.

As the last of the trucks disappeared along Fore Street, teachers began the difficult task of shepherding reluctant children back to their desks, shops opened their doors for business again and normal life resumed, at least momentarily.

Bette returned to the salon and a frustrated Nora Snell, her small round head still tethered to the permanent waving machine which was in turn fixed to the ceiling.

‘Did you miss them?’ Bette mischievously enquired, recognising the expression of frustration in the woman’s inquisitive little eyes. ‘What a pity.’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ said Nora, as ever determined to have the last word. ‘I could see everything through your window here, though a good clean would do it no harm at all. If you can find the time midst all your gallivanting.’