We'll Meet Again (29 page)

‘We can’t have your sister seeing us in all this muck,’ she said without even stopping the circular movement of the scrubbing brush. ‘It goes without saying she’s used to much better than this.’

He squatted down beside her. ‘Bella, it’s my sister you are talking about, born and raised in the East End, she’s the same as us, no better, no worse, and if she tries to come here all high and
mighty, I’ll soon put her back in her place. Now pack that in and put that meat in the oven or we’ll have nothing to give her and that would be worse.’

‘All right.’ She got up off her knees and handed him the brush. ‘You finish it while I cook.’

The flat, which had once been the upper floor of a semi-detached house, consisted of a kitchen and a bedroom with a shared bathroom. Because they were both working long hours, housework and cooking had been a low priority. They could eat their main meal in the canteen at work, and neither bothered much about a little dust. He didn’t think his sister would worry unduly about it either. But she might frown at their unmarried state. It was the first time it had crossed his mind that they were living in sin. He didn’t think of it as a sin.

‘Bella,’ he said, when he had finished the floor and the brisket was giving off an appetising smell in the oven. ‘Sit down. I want to talk to you.’

They sat on either side of the table. He reached out and took her hands in his. ‘We had better say we are engaged and soon going to marry …’

‘Charlie Phipps, now who’s worried about what she will think?’

‘What do you say?’

‘I say no. You haven’t seen your sister in years and you are going to start off with a lie.’

‘It needn’t be a lie.’

‘And is that supposed to please me?’

‘Doesn’t it?’

‘No, it does not. When I agree to marry someone, it will be because he loves me and I love him and he has asked me properly and bought me an engagement ring, not because he is afraid of what his sister will think.’

‘I can’t afford a ring.’

‘I know that, silly.’

He sighed and stood up. ‘OK, point taken.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Out.’

‘But you can’t. She’ll be here any minute.’

‘I won’t be long.’ And he was gone.

‘Are you Bella?’ The girl who opened the door to Sheila was thin, her face had little colour except for the lipstick which was scarlet. Her hair was pale and wispy, but her blue eyes were bright and intelligent.

‘Yes. You must be Sheila. Come in.’ She led the way upstairs. ‘I’m afraid Charlie’s gone out. He’ll be back soon.’

‘Oh.’ Sheila had walked up the road in a fever of anticipation, wondering how they would greet each other, imagining what he might look like, what he might say, only to be met with this deflating disappointment. ‘You
were
expecting me?’

‘Oh, yes. Do sit down.’ She indicated a chair. ‘I was just finishing off the dinner.’

‘It smells delicious.’ She watched Bella put a saucepan of potatoes on the gas. ‘Tell me about Charlie.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything. How did you meet? Did he really believe I was dead?’

‘Yes.’ Bella took a seat opposite her and explained how she had pulled Charlie from the ruins and looked after him while he recovered. ‘He was devastated when I told him you were dead.’

‘You told him?’

‘Yes. He was in hospital and fretting, so I went to find out. I was told you had died in that school. You know, the one where all
those people got killed. It was why you didn’t have a grave. When he heard you singing, it was like a lamp had been turned on inside him. He got that excited, I thought he’d burst into flames. And then he met that lady.’

‘The Countess of Winterton. That’s when I heard he was alive. I was excited too. Why did he go out, knowing I was coming?’

Bella laughed. ‘I think he’s gone to try and buy an engagement ring. He didn’t think you would approve of us living in sin, so he said we ought to be engaged at least. He thought you had moved up in the world, knowing titled ladies and singing on the wireless an’ all.’

‘He’s my brother, Bella, nothing changes that, nothing at all.’

The door burst open and Charlie stood there, breathing heavily. The gangling youth she had last seen was a handsome young man, rather too thin, but tall and straight, taller than she was she discovered when she scrambled to her feet to go to him. He opened his arms and she walked into them. He held her tight. ‘Sheila, I’m so sorry, so sorry I wasn’t here.’

‘You’re here now and that’s all that matters.’ She stepped back to appraise him, and laughed. ‘Did you get it?’

‘Get what?’

‘The engagement ring.’

He looked across at Bella. ‘You told her.’

‘Why not? You weren’t here. I had to tell her why.’

‘I like your Bella,’ Sheila said. ‘And I like honesty. There’s so little of it nowadays.’

‘I like her too,’ he said, looking at Bella. ‘Very much.’

‘Well, did you get the ring?’ Sheila asked.

‘Yes, but according to Bella I have to ask her properly and I’ll do that later. Let’s sit down, we’ve so much catching up to do.’

Bella dished up the meal. The plates were odd and so was the
cutlery, but Sheila didn’t even notice as they talked while they ate. When the raid started, Pa had sent him home to look after his Mum and help her with the rest of the kids. He had started out on his bike but things got a bit hot in more ways than one.

‘A bomb went straight through the roof of a house, just as I was cycling past and the blast knocked me off me bike and I blacked out,’ he said. ‘When I came to, I was buried under a pile of rubble. I couldn’t move. The bomb had started a fire, I could hear it crackling. I thought the fire brigade were bound to find me, but no one came.’

‘Oh, Charlie, I wish I’d known.’

‘I was there for ages. There was a beam just above my head and it was propped against a pile of bricks at one end. It was the only thing stopping the whole house from coming down on top of me. I was half afraid to try and move but I had to do something. The problem was how to get out from under that beam without dislodging everything.’ He paused, remembering how he had managed to free one hand and tried to turn on his side in order to burrow his way out. He had heard falling masonry and the tiny space he occupied had been filled with brick dust. He dare not cough, dare not try that move again. Apart from the risk of bringing the remains of the house down on him, his chest hurt so much that breathing was painful.

‘I got my hand round half a brick and wriggled it. It suddenly disappeared, fell down somewhere. I waited for everything to come down on me, but when it didn’t I tried another one and then another. I made a hole big enough to get my head out, but by then I was done for. I thought I was going to die.’

‘I found him,’ Bella put in. ‘I saw the top of his head and one hand and I fetched my brother and two of his friends and they dragged him out. We thought at first he was dead. His eyes were
shut and his face was covered in scratches and bruises, but then he moaned, so they put him onto a door and carried him to hospital. His ribs had been crushed and his legs broken and the fingers of his left hand, the one he had used to do all the digging, were shredded and bleeding. He was in a coma for three weeks.’

‘When I came round,’ he went on. ‘I told Bella my name and where I lived. I knew Ma would be worried about me. She promised to go and tell her where I was.’

She came back the next day with the terrible news that his whole family had perished, every single one of them. ‘Your ma and the kids all died when the house got a direct hit,’ she had told him, holding tight onto his good hand. ‘They couldn’t have known much about it. Your pa died down by the docks and your big sister died in the South Hallsville school the next day when that got hit. There were hundreds taking shelter there and they weren’t able to identify them all.’

The news had laid him low for days and hindered his recovery. ‘If it hadn’t been for Bella, I don’t think I would have got better, I’d have simply laid there and let myself die,’ he said. ‘But she came to the hospital every day to cheer me up. I was there three months. As soon as I could, I went home, but there was nothing left of it. I just stood there looking at that hole in the ground. It was filled with water and I imagine Mum and everyone lying there. It was horrible.’

‘I know,’ Sheila said. ‘It was the same for me.’

‘I had to convince myself they weren’t there, so I went to see the graves.’

‘You put flowers there, didn’t you?’ Sheila said. ‘I wondered who it was.’

‘We could have met there,’ he said. ‘I wonder why we didn’t.’

‘It was not meant to happen then, I suppose. I got sent to
Bletchley and Aunt Constance. It must have been while you were still in hospital.’

‘I thought about joining the army,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t leave Bella.’

‘They wouldn’t have you,’ Bella said. ‘You’re too knocked about.’

‘I’m as fit as a flea now. But enough of me. What about you, Sheila. How did you meet a countess and how did you come to be singing on the wireless?’

Those questions were easy to answer. The only thing Sheila had to avoid was explaining about Bletchley Park. She told them she worked as a messenger in the post room of a factory doing war work and thankfully they did not ask for details. She talked about their aunt and Prue and how she met Johnnie who had turned out to be their cousin. ‘Perhaps you’ll meet him one day,’ she said. ‘You must come to Bletchley and meet our aunt too.’

‘What happened to Chris Jarrett?’ he asked. ‘I thought you and he …’

‘He was killed in action. In the navy. On the Arctic convoys.’

‘I’m sorry. You’ve had a worse deal of it than I have, haven’t you? But we’ve got good memories, haven’t we?’

They went on to recall things about Ma and Pa and the younger children, some of which made them laugh, some made them sad and the time flew by. Later in the afternoon, she and Charlie took the tube to West Ham and visited the graves to leave fresh flowers. ‘It’s quite a trek from Croydon or I’d come more often,’ he said.

‘For me too, but June Bennett keeps it tidy for me. It’s strange you didn’t meet her either. She knew where I was.’

‘I had to come in the evening, after work and there was never anyone about. We won’t lose touch again, will we?’

‘No, definitely not. You will invite me to the wedding won’t you?’

‘If Bella will have me, you will be guest of honour.’

‘Of course she’ll have you. There isn’t any doubt of that.’

‘I wish you could have someone …’

‘I’m all right, Charlie, more than all right. I’ve got a career to look forward to and good friends. And now I’ve got you and Bella. What more could I ask for?’ Except Ma and Pa and the little ones, she added silently.

She left him at the underground station; she was going to Euston to get the Bletchley train, he was going back to Croydon to propose properly to Bella. In spite of the war, life was good.

Aunt Constance was alone, listening to the wireless while she knitted a khaki sock intended for Johnnie, when Sheila came in. She put her head round the drawing room door. ‘I’m back.’

‘How did it go?’

‘Wonderful. He’s grown into a strapping handsome man and he’s going to be married. We’ll be invited. Where’s Prue?’

‘I think she has gone out with Hugh. Would you like some supper? I’ve had mine.’

‘I’ll make myself a sandwich. Would you like me to make cocoa? Then I’ll tell you all about Charlie.’

‘Yes, that would be nice.’

Much later, she went up to her room, washed and made ready for bed, then sat down in her pyjamas with the eiderdown about her to write her journal.

She closed the book, put it away in her box and snuggled down in the warmth of the bed. ‘Thank you, God,’ she murmured as she closed her eyes.

Hugh was not the brash young man Prue had first encountered in the chemist’s shop. That had been a front to cover his insecurity. His need for strong spectacles and his bookishness meant he had been badly bullied at his public school. ‘It was the wrong place for me,’ he told Prue. ‘Everyone was mad keen on sport. If you could play rugger, cricket or tennis you were OK, otherwise your life was made hell. When we had paper chases I used to hide in the woods and read. Of course I was punished for it.’ The subject had come up because they were watching an enthusiastic game of rounders on the grass in front of the lake. ‘It wasn’t so much the staff as the other boys.’

‘I’ve heard Gillie talk about that sort of thing.’

‘He wasn’t bullied?’

‘Heavens, no! He was good at all sports. He’s good at everything really.’

‘Bully for him.’

‘We can’t all be the same, Hugh, and you have your uses.’

‘Hut Eight.’

‘Yes, that’s important, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I meant the way you’ve put up with me. It can’t have been easy, me always going on about Gillie and Tim and weeping all over you. You’ve got a lot of patience.’