Wartime Wife (17 page)

A look of alarm crossed his mother’s face. ‘You didn’t tell her the truth, did you?’

He patted her cheek and looked down into her face. ‘Of course not.’

If anyone had studied their features more closely, they would have seen the resemblance despite the difference in years. They both had the same hard glint in their eyes and
the spoiled pout of someone who always expects to get their own way.

Mrs Selwyn stroked her son’s hair. ‘As long as you’re safe, my darling.’

Peter took hold of his mother’s hand and kissed it. ‘Don’t worry, Mother. The war will soon be over and I shall keep my head down until it is.’

There was a smell in the air outside the recruiting office. Lizzie became aware of it the moment they became part of the excitable throng eddying like a freak wave around the open door. Although her thoughts were preoccupied with Peter, she couldn’t help being carried along by the crowds and the atmosphere of fearful excitement.

Patrick saw the look on her face, presumed it was fear and dared to squeeze her hand – at least she thought he did. It was hard to gauge whose hand it was. Men determined to do their bit for their country pressed forwards, aided and abetted by screaming or fainting women. The world had gone mad.

Patrick bristled with excitement. ‘Look at ’em, Lizzie. All these blokes not waiting to be called up but coming down here to enlist – it’s unbelievable.’

‘It is that all right,’ Lizzie answered, her voice and expression betraying the reservations she felt. ‘Don’t they realise they could be killed?’

‘We’re off to do our duty,’ Patrick replied, but Lizzie knew it was something more than that in his case. He was escaping from his past. Born illegitimate to a mother with the worst reputation in Bedminster, this was his chance to make something of himself.

‘You can’t blame Patrick for wanting to go, and you can’t help admiring John being so brave,’ she whispered to Daw.

Pale and tearful, Daw clenched her lips and nodded. She
didn’t want John to go, but on the other hand he was doing what was expected of him. She was proud of that.

‘Kill the Hun,’ one old man shouted. He was wearing a spiked German helmet from the Great War and his cheeks were as red as his jacket.

Despite the crush, Lizzie felt herself growing cold. If killing had a smell, then that’s what she smelled now.

She glanced across at Daw and saw that John’s arm was wound tightly around her shoulder as though he were trying to keep her from falling. Suddenly she felt lonely even though she was in the midst of a crowd. Daw had John, but although she tried to kid herself that she had Peter, he wasn’t here was he, but off to Canada.

As the queue surged forwards, she was pushed into the gutter, her hat knocked sideways. Patrick grabbed her before she fell.

‘Steady on there, Lizzie.’

John shouted at them both. ‘Get back across the road, the pair of you. Patrick and me’ll get over to you once we’ve signed up.’

He pushed Daw towards her and somehow, Lizzie didn’t know how, Patrick swapped places with her so that he and John went forwards together.

Trams, cabs and tradesmen’s carts and lorries pushed their way through the crowds along with a few double-decker buses. Crossing the road was only possible once they’d passed, the crowd dispersing long enough for them to get through.

‘Look,’ said Daw once they’d gained the other side.

Lizzie admired the stone glinting on Daw’s finger.

‘He bought it for me last week and kept it a secret until he’d had a word with Dad. Fancy him keeping it secret from me. He reckons Mum already knows, but she ain’t said nothing to
me.’ Her expression changed from anxiety to excitement in a matter of minutes.

‘We’re engaged, Lizzie. We’re going to get married before he goes. I don’t think Dad will say no, do you? I mean, does Dad ever say no to anything we want to do?’

‘’Course not. Dad’s a big softy. He’ll give in. He always does.’

Frightening moments stayed in Daw’s mind. ‘He wasn’t too pleased with our Harry.’

‘Ah!’ said Lizzie, also surprised at their father’s anger. They’d never seen him angry before, only drunk, and even then, he was always jovial. Nevertheless, she did her best to reassure her sister.

‘That was different, Daw. Our dad loved the army and always did his duty for his country. He can’t believe that anyone else wouldn’t be keen too, just like he was. Our Harry surprised him. Men like to think their sons are as brave as they were. Anyway, you’re nearly twenty-one so it won’t matter much if he did say no. Leave it to Mum, she’ll bring him round.’

She felt like adding that John was not twenty-one yet either and that he was old enough to get killed so why should there be a problem. Who was to say when the time was right?

It was half an hour before Patrick and John returned. Lizzie tried to read their expressions. Patrick looked exuberant. No surprise really. He was off on the biggest adventure of his life. Nothing could be worse than the childhood he’d endured, neglected by his mother and shunned by those who should know better.

John’s face was a different matter. He looked stunned, almost miserable, as if he’d only just realised exactly what he’d done.

The air was humid, the bleak clouds of a gathering storm pressing uncomfortably down on them.

‘Daw,’ he said, the narrow gap between them somehow seeming a mile wide. ‘I can’t marry you. There’s no time. We have to go home, gather our personal belongings and report to Temple Meads Station. We’re being sent for training.’

Daw’s pink cheeks paled. ‘You’re in the army already?’

He shook his head. ‘No. The air force, just like I said I would.’

Head thudding onto his shoulder, Daw burst into tears. He held her tight, his face against her hair, his expression as heavy as the gathering storm. ‘I’ll be going away for training. They haven’t said where. It’s top secret.’

Lizzie felt her stomach heave. Daw had told her that John had only asked her that morning when he’d given her the ring.

Daw finally raised her head. ‘So what do we do now?’ She laughed, a nervous, alien sound hiding an underlying sob.

‘We do as we’re ordered,’ said Patrick, who had stood patiently and quietly, watching the loving couple with a mix of embarrassment and envy. ‘We’ve got no choice.’ He looked at Lizzie and smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve joined the air force too. I don’t know whether I’ll be doing any flying, but they want ground staff too. They’re sending us away for training right away. It was that or the merchant navy. Freddie Hill’s joining that.’

‘So’s—’ Lizzie had been going to say that Peter Selwyn was also going into the merchant navy, and barely stopped herself. She didn’t want any awkward questions.

Instead she smiled. ‘Then we’d better head for home.’

Inside, she harboured deep concern for both boys. She hadn’t expected to worry about either of them, especially Patrick. And yet seeing them clutching their recruitment papers, their faces tense with expectation, she shared their fears, the realisation that they had done something momentous, something they only now were coming to terms with.

Luckily, they’d packed everything they would need for leaving so swiftly.

Temple Meads Station was more packed than the recruiting office. Hundreds of men milled over the platform and the air here was as charged with apprehension and excitement as it had been at the recruitment office.

‘You promise you’ll answer my letters?’ Patrick asked Lizzie.

‘Of course I will.’

Patrick smiled. ‘Thanks for that photograph. You don’t mind if I tell blokes that you’re my sweetheart, do you?’

Lizzie had given him the photograph earlier. Daw had brought it from home and it was too late to give it to Peter. Besides, it wasn’t her best photo; she was about fifteen and still wearing a girl’s dress with frills around the sleeves, a shapeless skirt, cotton socks and sandals.

‘Yes, I do mind! It’s an awful photo. You’d better tell them that I’m your best friend.’

He looked disappointed, but she couldn’t help it. There was and always would be a stigma associated with Patrick Kelly. It was sad, but that was the way of things. If only she’d known that Peter was going away, she would have made a point of choosing her best photograph and giving it to him.

‘There’s three trains for troops,’ the railway porter explained. ‘They’re going to three different training camps.’

‘And where would they be?’ asked Patrick.

‘You’ll find out when you get there,’ the porter answered and disappeared into the crowd.

The fumes and noise of steam engines reverberated against the overhead roof.

‘It’s here! It’s here,’ shouted Patrick. ‘Come on, John. This one’s fer us.’

John barely had time to hug and kiss Daw before Patrick
dragged him off, Daw’s face smothered in tears as Lizzie pulled her away.

The crowd pressed into the gap left by the two men. It was a useless task, but Lizzie did her best to console her older sister.

‘Wave goodbye, Daw. Wave goodbye. See? There they are … just over there.’

She pointed to where John and Patrick were hanging out of a carriage window, waving for all they were worth.

The two sisters waved back, Daw blowing kisses, as her nose began to run along with her tears.

‘They’ll be home in no time,’ Lizzie assured her.

‘By Christmas,’ said a woman beside her, her hat tipping over her middle-aged face. ‘My two boys are going to be home by Christmas. I told them to be sure of that.’

‘Do you think they will be?’ Daw asked.

Lizzie didn’t hear the woman’s reply. Her gaze had drifted to the opposite platform where Peter Selwyn stood waiting for the boat train, his arms around his mother, who was sobbing profusely against his chest.

She only turned away when she realised that Daw was whispering something against her ear.

‘What was that you said,’ she asked, her gaze still fixed on Peter Selwyn.

‘I said, we did it,’ said Daw, her face pink with embarrassment. ‘We couldn’t stop ourselves.’

Lizzie was dumbstruck. She saw her sister’s dark eyes and bright red lips through a blur of guilty thoughts. Was it her fault she’d done it? Had she unwittingly encouraged her to give in to John?

Daw’s bottom lip quivered. ‘You don’t think I’ll get pregnant do you, not from just doing it the once? It was the first time, Lizzie, honestly it was.’

‘I don’t know.’ Lizzie shook her head and turned her attention back to Peter and his mother. There was no sign of them and the boat train to Southampton was moving out of the station. He was gone and she didn’t know when she would see him again.

The knocking at the front door was polite but persistent.

‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’

Mary Anne muttered angrily to herself at the same time as climbing over a pile of blackout curtains that she’d not quite finished hemming to the right length for the front parlour. Her attention was riveted on the door and whoever was hammering on it.

‘If it’s not the doctor or the vicar, they’ll get the sharp edge of my tongue.’

At the same time she untied her apron and flung it on the hallstand. It was a rule that she never answered the front door wearing her apron, and few people used the front door. Customers wanting to pledge and borrow went round the back. Only important people like the doctor or someone from the taxi company to ask where Henry was, or Henry himself. Everyone else came in at the back door.

The last person she expected to see was Biddy all done up like a dog’s dinner, smelling of Evening in Paris, a tawny red fox fur draped around her shoulders.

Biddy’s face looked strangely tight, as though she had adopted a particularly singular expression that morning and was holding on to it for dear life.

Mary Anne frowned. ‘What do you want? Is something wrong?’

Biddy shrugged one shoulder, dragging Mary Anne’s attention to the snout of the long dead fox.

‘I wanted to pledge me fur. Our Brian’s joined the navy and I wanted to give him a good send off – so foxy here has to go.’

Mary Anne folded her arms and adopted her own tight expression. ‘Then you, of all people, should know better. Why didn’t you go round the back as usual? Gone up in the world are we?’

Biddy looked taken aback. ‘What? With him there?’ She jerked her dimpled chin to the archway dissecting the terrace and the only way to the back alley.

A sense of foreboding swirled inside Mary Anne’s stomach, which already ached in the aftermath of Henry’s anger about Harry refusing to enlist. He couldn’t have found out about her business, could he?

She followed Biddy’s pointing finger.

‘Him,’ Biddy said, nodding to where a matt black shadow fell from the archway. ‘He says he’ll stop anyone from doing business with you. He says it’s illegal. I told him I didn’t care, and who was he anyway to tell me where I should pledge me valuables. He told me that he’s a
real
pawnbroker and that you got no rights doing him out of business.’

Mary Anne stared at her dumbfounded, then back to the figure in the archway. ‘Oh does he now!’

Bundling Biddy inside, she told her to find her own way to the washhouse and to put the kettle on the gas on her way through the kitchen. Pulling the door almost shut behind her, she took a deep breath and rolled up her sleeves like a boxer ready for a brawl. This was her street, her territory. Ready to face anything, she headed for the archway.

Although her knees trembled, her indignation kept her
going. No one was going to stop her earning a shilling – legal or not.

She recognised the foreigner who had accosted her in the back garden, nephew to the old man who had died. He had a wary look in eyes half hidden by thick, straight hair that fell darkly across his brow. Lines radiated from the corners of his mouth, surely too many for someone of his age? Surely he couldn’t be much more than twenty-five, and yet what was it about him that made her think he’d have some tales to tell if she had a mind to listen.

None of your business! She forced herself to focus on the present problem. Never mind tales, what the bloody hell’s he doing here?

The foreigner was taller than her, though not so tall as her husband or son, but he had a more hardened look, his brow throwing a shadow over his eyes.