There’s Always Tomorrow (9 page)

It was a mad rush to get the tea ready before Reg got home and the potatoes still needed another ten minutes when Dottie saw him parking his bike against the wall. She wondered what sort of a mood he was in; but she needn’t have worried. He was feeling cheerful. He handed her a bunch of sweet peas.

‘Ooh, Reg!’ She couldn’t hide her surprise. He seldom gave her the flowers from his station garden, preferring instead to hand them out to his passengers. In between his station duties, he’d built up a reputation as an expert nurseryman, cultivating flowers and even a few vegetables on the strip of land alongside the station ticket office, and collecting a great many ardent admirers along the way. It was well known in the village that if you had a gardening problem, Reg was the man to ask.

She held them to her nose and sniffed them loudly. ‘They’re lovely.’

‘The fence is covered,’ he said proudly. ‘A really nice show this year.’

He sat in his chair and took off his railwayman’s boots, then went upstairs. A few minutes later he came down in his gardening clothes. ‘Just going out to dig a few spuds,’ he said. ‘Dinner nearly ready?’

‘Five more minutes,’ she said as she arranged the sweet peas in a vase. Their heady perfume filled the kitchen and she could tell they were his prize blooms by their big, perfectly formed petals. They were the talk of the village.

‘No one can grow sweet peas like your Reg.’

‘He ought to go enter the flower show with those blooms.’

‘Magnificent. What’s his secret?’

She was back in the scullery putting the runner beans in a colander when she heard a footfall outside the back door.

‘I’m just dishing up, Reg,’ she called.

‘Dottie, it’s me.’

Dottie swung round to find Peaches in the doorway. She looked drained. Her face was pale and she wore no make-up. There were dark circles under her eyes. ‘I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, but Jack and I couldn’t wait. How is he? Did he look any better?’

Dottie grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. She’d have to be quick. She have to say her piece before Reg came back up the garden.

‘What’s she bloody doing here?’ He was already sitting at the kitchen table. He rose to his feet. ‘Get out of here, Peaches Smith. You’re not welcome.’

Peaches stared at him aghast. ‘Not welcome …?’ she said faintly.

‘No …’ Dottie began. ‘What Reg means …’

But Reg stepped between them, pushing Dottie aside. ‘Look, no offence,’ he said, his tone a little less harsh, ‘but Dottie’s afraid she’ll get it, see?

‘Wait, Reg …’ Dottie protested.

Peaches gave her a stricken look.

‘Listen, Peaches …’ Dottie gasped. ‘Let me explain.’

But before Dottie could start, Reg had taken Peaches’ arm and was manoeuvring her back through the door. ‘It’s best if you don’t come round for a while.’

Peaches stared at him. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Hang on a minute …’ Dottie began again.

Peaches rounded on Dottie. ‘You promised to go and see my Gary today. Didn’t you go?’

Dottie saw Reg’s back stiffen and her heart almost stopped. What was she going to do now? If she said yes, he would have one of his moods. If she said no, Peaches would be distraught. For a second, her brain refused to function. Think, she told herself desperately, think. Say something. Say the right thing. They were both facing her now, one staring at her with a helpless expression and the other with that dark look in his eye.

‘Look, Dottie can’t help the way she feels,’ said Reg, his eyes unmoving as they stared into her face. His words soft and measured.

‘But you did go and see him, didn’t you, Dottie? You saw my baby?’

Dottie turned away. She lowered herself into a chair. She’d have to lie. To placate Reg, she’d have to lie. She’d go round to Peaches later, like she planned, and she’d explain why she had to do it. Peaches would understand.

‘Dottie?’

‘I’m afraid Reg is right,’ Dottie said quietly. ‘I didn’t go.’

‘But you promised,’ Peaches wailed. ‘My poor baby. All alone …’

‘It’s not that she doesn’t care for the boy,’ Reg said, his voice as smooth as silk.

‘Oh yes,’ said Peaches her voice turning brittle, ‘everybody cares.’ She snatched her arm away from Reg. ‘If I’d known you weren’t going,’ she shouted at Dottie’s bowed head, ‘I could have arranged for my mother to go. At least then my Gary would have had
somebody
with him. I’ll never forgive you for this, Dottie. Never.’

As she swept out of the back door, Dottie put her hands over her face and closed her eyes.

‘Don’t upset yourself, Dot. It was for the best,’ Reg said as they heard the front gate banging shut. ‘You did it for my Patsy.’

‘Patsy, your Patsy,’ Dottie burst out. ‘You don’t even know when she’s coming. Australia is thousands of miles away.’

‘She’s coming.’

‘Even the boat takes six weeks.’

‘She’s coming, I tell you.’

‘And how are we going to get the money to get her here?’

Reg clenched and unclenched his fists. ‘I’ll get the money.’

Dottie blew her nose into her handkerchief. ‘Peaches is my best friend.’

‘And I’m your bloody husband,’ he said sharply. He banged his fist on the table, making all the plates rattle. The sauce bottle fell over. ‘Now stop this bloody racket and let’s be having our tea.’

‘Where d’you want it, Reg?’

Half an hour later, Michael Gilbert’s cheery shout brought an angry and red-eyed Dottie from the scullery where she was washing the dishes.

‘Hello, Michael.’ She wiped her hands on her apron. ‘What are you doing here?’

He gave her a long look and she knew he was wondering why she’d been crying. ‘Reg asked me to bring some bales of hay round. You all right, Dottie?’

Michael was fond of Dottie. She joined the Land Girls on his father’s farm in 1941. The Ministry of Fisheries and Food had already sent some local girls, Peaches Taylor, now Smith, Hilary Dolton-Walker (she’d ended up in Canada, he thought), Sylvie Draycot (she’d married a banker called McDonald, and lived in the New Forest somewhere) and Mary had done her bit too. There were others who came and went and he’d be hard put to recall either their names or faces, except Molly Dawson of course. She stuck out in his mind only because she’d been killed in an air raid while home on leave in Coventry. As a kid, whenever he’d looked at Dottie, he got a funny feeling at the pit of his stomach. He’d never understood it of course, but he’d made up his mind that one day he’d marry her. However, when she was eighteen and he was still only fourteen, she went and married Reg Cox. He didn’t think of her in that way any more, but he was fond of her, like a sister. He didn’t like to see her upset.

Dottie smiled, her eyes willing him not to ask any more questions. ‘Reg is upstairs getting ready to go out.’

‘Oh no, I’m not, my darling,’ said Reg coming up behind her. ‘I’m staying in tonight. We’ve got to get something sorted out about that bloody pig, haven’t we?’

Dottie’s heart sank. She’d been planning to run over to Peaches’ house as soon as Reg left for the Jolly Farmer.

‘Bring the rest of the bales down the garden, will you, Michael?’ said Reg pushing past her and grabbing the first bale from Michael’s hands. ‘I reckon a dozen will do me. Got the chicken wire?’

Michael nodded. ‘On the back of the trailer.’ He lingered a second or two. Dottie was aware that he was looking at her but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘I’ll be right there.’

Silently, Dottie went back to the bowl to finish the washing up. Perhaps, she thought to herself, she could pop out while they were busy up the garden; but Reg soon put paid to that.

‘When you’ve finished that, put the kettle on, Dot,’ he called cheerfully over his shoulder. ‘Michael looks like a man dying of thirst.’

The two men set to work making a pen at one end of the chicken run for the pig but first they shut the chickens in the henhouse and put the pig on a rope tied to the old apple tree. When Dottie walked up the garden with two cups of tea, Reg was missing.

‘Where is he?’ she asked Michael furtively.

‘In the lavvy.’

Michael was at the back of the newly made pig run banging in the wooden posts. Dottie sidled up to him.

‘Listen, Michael, do me a favour, will you?’ She heard the bolt slide back on the lavatory door. Michael carried on banging. ‘It’ll take too long to explain,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Would you tell Peaches not to say anything to Reg but tell her I did go?’

Michael stopped banging. He readjusted a pin in his mouth and said, ‘You what?’

She glanced nervously over her shoulder and realised it was too late. Reg was already coming back up the path.

‘I’m sorry, Dottie,’ said Michael. ‘I missed that. What did you say?’

‘Do you have sugar in your tea? I can’t remember.’

He gave her a quizzical look. ‘No thanks.’

Reg took his cup and Dottie returned to the house. She went upstairs and looked out of the window. Michael was helping Reg staple the chicken wire onto the posts. Did she have time to get over to Peaches? She could if she got her bike out, but the bike was in the shed, and Reg would see her going in there. She’d just made up her mind to chance it when Reg spotted her at the window and shouted, ‘Bring us another cup of tea, Dot.’

Downstairs in the scullery again, Dottie wiped away her angry tears. Everything was going wrong. Reg wanted her to have his child and yet he didn’t want her. She had upset her best friend and if she didn’t explain everything to Peaches as soon as possible, she’d never repair the damage done. And on top of all that, there would be another row when she told Reg about Sylvie coming.

Twelve thousand miles away, Brenda Nichols shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare with her hand as she watched the Flying Doctor’s plane bank and circle the homestead. As it finally came in to land, the red earth exploded into a cloud of hot dry dust, which set up a swirling trail behind it.

Their radio call had been very specific. ‘We have to make Muloorina before nightfall. Can you make sure everybody’s ready to meet the doctor on the airstrip? Over.’

Brenda pressed the control button. ‘This is 8 EM. Everyone is here, Doc. I have five patients for you. Baby Christopher Patterson for a Salk inoculation, little Mandy Dickson wants some cough medicine because her chest is bad again, Taffy Knowles needs you to look at his toe. He reckons a snake bit him but I think he’s got an ingrowing toenail. Dick Rawlings has a cut in his finger that will need a couple of stitches and Mick Saul has another ear infection. Shall I have some tea ready for you? Over.’

‘Right on, Bren.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Out.’

The plane taxied towards them and came to a stop. They all waited for a few minutes before the door opened and Doc Landers, wearing his now familiar brown Tyrolean hat, given to him by a grateful patient, climbed onto the steps.

Brenda had put a white sheet over the table on the veranda and it was here that the doctor set up his makeshift surgery. As usual Brenda’s diagnoses were correct and it didn’t take him long to dish out the medicine and insert a few stitches into the cut. As soon as he’d finished he sank back into a chair and Brenda put the kettle on.

The homestead in the Australian outback was a far cry from her nursing job in England where she had risen to the position of sister at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Boscombe. Never one to rest on her laurels, Brenda had joined the army and travelled to the Far East. When war broke out, she was in Singapore and the trouble in Europe seemed a million miles away. She had been lucky enough to fall in love with Burt Nichols in ’41, a year before the Japanese overran the colony and she was safely in his hometown of Murnpeowie celebrating her marriage when the advancing forces trapped the rest of her friends and colleagues. Because they’d both come through the war unscathed, Brenda was a great believer in luck.

She thought her luck had run out when Burt got ill so soon after their return, but then she found the homestead, where they now eked out a living. Brenda put the teapot down in front of him. ‘How’s your mum, Doc?’

‘Going for more tests.’

‘Sounds ominous?’ She pushed a cup of tea in front of him.

‘Nobody’s saying much but it sounds to me like she won’t be able to take care of herself for much longer.’

‘Oh, I’m real sorry about that, Doc. Does this mean you’ll be leaving?’

‘I’ll hang around a while longer and see what the results are first.’

Brenda handed him a big piece of her legendary Victoria sponge cake. ‘Did you bring any post for me, Doc?’

‘A few bits and pieces,’ he smiled. ‘Bills mostly.’

Brenda pursed her lips. ‘Nothing from England?’

The doctor shook his head. ‘Definitely nothing from there.’ He leaned forwards and patted her arm. ‘Save yourself the trouble of worrying, Brenda. You’ll never hear from that bloke again.’

‘I can’t let it go, Doc,’ said Brenda. ‘I promised the kid’s mother.’

‘What are we talking about?’ asked Alf the pilot as he pushed his plate forward for a piece of Brenda’s cake. ‘Or is it private?’

‘Brenda’s looking after a little kid. She belonged to a friend of hers who died. She’s trying to trace the kid’s father.’

Alf pulled a face. ‘Local, is he?’

‘A British Tommy,’ said Brenda. ‘Got her in the family way in ’42. I’ve got the name and address of a pub where they used to meet.’

‘Blimey,’ said Alf. ‘What makes you think he’d even want the kid after all this time?’

‘I dunno,’ said Brenda. ‘Maybe he won’t. I don’t think he’s ever seen her but I just wanted to do what’s right by her, that’s all.’

‘How long since you wrote?’ asked Alf, sticking his mug out for some more tea.

‘Five weeks.’ She looked at the Doctor. ‘That’s time enough for a reply isn’t it, Doc?’

‘I should think so. He obviously doesn’t want to know. Forget it, Bren. You’ve done your best.’

Brenda went to the window where she could see the children swarming around the plane. ‘I can’t, Doc. I promised.’

‘Why don’t you and Burt keep her? You both love kids.’