Telegrams and Teacakes: A heartbreaking World War Two family saga, page 6
‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll find out,’ she said, before taking Christine’s hand and gently shaking it. ‘It’s been lovely to meet you, Christine. I wish you luck returning to Bristol. This war has torn apart some of our most beautiful cities but in time hopefully they will be rebuilt. I do hope you can get on with your life there now you’ve had some respite here.’
At the change of subject and mention of her home, a wave of emotion passed over Christine’s face, and Audrey’s heart went out to her. Wartime was hard on everyone. Bidding her farewell, Audrey’s mind returned to Betty. After checking that Lily and Pat could watch the shop, she set off in the direction Betty had dashed off, walking as quickly as her pregnant bump would allow.
‘She didn’t get far,’ she muttered to herself when she spotted Betty sitting in the long grasses on the clifftop, her chin leaning on her knees. Pausing for a second to admire a common blue and clouded yellow butterfly, Audrey felt heartened – they carried on fluttering about despite the ugly sea defences, pillboxes and rolls of barbed wire on the beach below. As she continued towards Betty, she was hit once again by a pain in her lower back so sharp that she had to pause, close her eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. After a few moments the pain eased and she reached Betty, who turned to face her with tear-stained cheeks.
‘Dry those tears,’ said Audrey, lowering herself to the ground with difficulty and resting her palm on Betty’s shoulders, ‘and tell me what’s troubling you.’
Chapter Eight
With Audrey waiting patiently for her to speak, Betty drew a shuddering breath and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. She barely knew Audrey, but there was something about the woman that could cut through a person and directly reach their heart, like a hot knife through butter. There was no point trying to tell her any more tales; she would only dig herself a deeper hole to fall into and have to claw herself out of. Plucking at the grass beneath her feet and throwing it down again, she struggled to find the right words. Sitting on the clifftop like this, among the wild sea-pink flowers and the yellow gorse, with picture postcard views stretching across the bay to Old Harry Rocks and the Purbeck Hills, she felt completely disorientated.
‘I do believe that’s a peregrine falcon,’ said Audrey, pointing to the large bird of prey with a blue-grey back and a black head hovering in the sky. ‘You don’t see many these days. They used to be on the protected list, but they’ve been attacking pigeons carrying vital services messages, so the government have taken them off the list. They’re being shot now, and their eggs taken out of nests and destroyed. Another sacrifice of war.’
‘That’s sad,’ mumbled Betty. ‘I hadn’t thought that the war would affect birds too.’
Audrey nodded, and they sat together in silence for a few moments before she placed a hand on Betty’s arm and patted it, reassuringly.
‘Why don’t you begin with telling me where you’re really from, Betty?’ she said. ‘And, is Betty your real name?’
‘Yes,’ replied Betty with a sigh. ‘I’m from Bristol. I’ve never even been to Portsmouth.’
Thoughts of her childhood and family in Bristol assailed Betty’s mind. There was no denying that she’d had a rough start in life, raised in an orphanage after her mother died of consumption when she was three years old. The one and only memory she had of her mother was of bright patterned cloth, possibly a dress, or an eiderdown perhaps. Sometimes in her dreams she saw its joyful, vivid colours, and it was something to call her own, but how could she put all of that into words?
‘I was born in Bristol,’ was all she said. ‘I grew up in an orphanage.’
She remembered how surprised she’d been when nobody at the orphanage read her a bedtime story. The place taught her strict discipline and how to scrub floors until they shone – the hours spent working trained her well for life in the tobacco factory, where she worked from the age of fourteen. She had nothing when she met Robert, and when he proposed after they’d courted for a few months, she didn’t hesitate for a second. They’d moved in with his mother, into the house on Queen Street, and she finally had the family life she’d craved. She longed for kiddies to shower with love, to give them a better life than she herself had had so far, but what did she get instead? Robert’s double-crossing and his shameful lie.
‘So why did you say you were from Portsmouth?’ asked Audrey, frowning.
‘Because I’ve run away from Bristol,’ she said. ‘I’ve run away from my husband. His name’s Robert and he’s no good. He’s…he’s only gone and…’
Audrey put her arm round Betty’s shoulders and Betty had to use all of her might to hold in the floods of tears that were threatening to spill. A few leaked onto her cheeks regardless.
‘Oh Betty,’ said Audrey. ‘I’ve seen the way some husbands treat their wives, beating them black and blue. Cutting them off from their friends and family. I’ve had customers who have been married to rotten men and regretted their decision. Personally, I wouldn’t stand for it. I’d run away like you and find a way to escape the violence—’
‘It’s not that,’ interrupted Betty, suddenly feeling strangely protective of Robert again. ‘He’s never raised a finger to me. No, it’s, well, it’s… I must have been doing something very wrong, because he’s got another woman, hasn’t he? I say another woman but it’s not like he’s got a fancy woman, no, it’s worse, he’s, he’s… he’s got a wife and kids. He’s married to two women, would you believe? Ha! Two wives in the same city and all.’
‘Well I never,’ Audrey gasped. ‘What a swine! Not to mention criminal! He could go to prison for that. Bigamy, it’s called. I read about a local case in the paper. How long have you known that, you poor dear girl?’
‘A few weeks. I came here because I couldn’t stand it any longer,’ Betty said. ‘I’d rather have gone anywhere than stay there feeling angry and upset and ashamed. Sometimes, when he came home and sat down in front of the fire to listen to the wireless, he’d ask me to massage his shoulders because they were stiff from working at the dockyard, and do you know what, Mrs Barton?’
Audrey shook her head sadly while Betty blinked away her tears.
‘I did it!’ she said, thumping the ground with her hand. ‘I’d obediently rub his shoulders and watch him close his eyes in pleasure and all the time I didn’t say a word about what I knew! I’m a coward, that’s what I am. I should have hit him on the head with the fire poker!’
Chewing the inside of her cheek, she shook her head in anger at herself and batted away a fat bee that seemed determined to land on her dress.
‘No,’ said Audrey, sighing. ‘You’re not a coward. It’s sometimes impossible when you know what you’re about to say will blow your life apart – it’s easier just to carry on carrying on. We’ve all done it in some way or another, love. Oh Betty, my heart goes out to you. Is this what the problem was with Christine? Does she know Robert?’
‘Yes,’ Betty said. ‘Her husband is a friend of his. I thought about telling her the truth, then I worried that she’d tell everyone and Robert would go to jail. I hate him, but I don’t want to see him behind bars. Anyway, when I wouldn’t tell her the truth, she threatened to tell him where I am unless I paid her half my wage. I lost my temper.’ She stared away, at the ground.
‘I would have lost mine too,’ said Audrey. ‘How dare she try to blackmail you? I wouldn’t have believed she had it in her, until today. Surprising how folk can be, isn’t it? Ouch!’
Betty turned to look at Audrey, who was holding a hand against her bump and frowning, perhaps as if the baby had kicked her. She relaxed and smiled again. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Ignore me.’
‘If you want me to leave, I will,’ said Betty, thinking that even though Audrey had been sympathetic about her plight, she would probably now distrust her for lying, but Audrey shook her head.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I want you to get back to the shop and start working the rest of your shift,’ she said. ‘You’ve done enough running. Stay put in Bournemouth and we’ll work out what to do together. Sounds like you could do with a friend, Betty.’
It was the first time anyone had used the word ‘we’ or ‘together’ in relation to her for a long time. Overwhelmed with gratitude and with a feeling of warmth in her heart, she quickly stood up, brushed off her dress and offered a hand to Audrey, helping her to her feet.
‘Thank you,’ said Betty. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
* * *
Despite Audrey’s kindness, Betty still felt a sense of unease as, after helping Pat with the WVS book collection, she walked home alone. It had been a long day and now, because of the blackout, the journey back to her rented room in complete darkness felt intimidating. Holding her breath as she passed dark doorways and narrow alleyways, Betty almost jumped out of her skin when a black cat leapt off a garden wall into her path.
‘Silly moggy!’ she hissed at the cat, resting her hand on her heart, which was pounding in her chest. ‘Frightened me half to death.’
Telling herself to get a hold of her nerves, she focussed on how the air in Bournemouth seemed to always smell of fish and chips frying, and how tonight, it was pierced with the bright chorus of trumpets and trombones of ‘In The Mood’, a Glen Miller song. An echo of excited laughter, both male and female, erupted as the song finished and Betty half-smiled, imagining an energetic dance party somewhere in the town, keeping up morale and helping people forget the war for a few hours. Feeling slightly envious of the girls in their flowing dance frocks and heeled shoes, who could leave their troubles at the door of the dance hall, she battled with the unshakeable fear she felt about Christine, who would have been back in Bristol hours ago. Would she have gone to the docks to find Robert? Was she that spiteful? Or was she all talk? Betty shuddered, hoping that Christine would keep her nose out of it and her trap shut.
Approaching her digs – which in blackout would be impossible to see if it wasn’t for the stripe of white paint the owner had painted on the gate to help tenants find their way – she was suddenly startled by the outline of a man lurking in the doorway of the Hotel Metropole. Heart hammering and her teeth chattering with nerves, a horrible thought suddenly dawned on her…
‘What if it’s Robert?’ she whispered to herself. ‘Come to get his money back.’
Before she had time to turn on her heel and run away as fast as she could, the figure leapt out of the doorway into her path. Closing her eyes, she screamed, but stopped when the man rested a hand on her shoulder and spoke in a friendly Canadian accent.
‘Hey, hey, Betty, it’s Sam!’ he said, laughing gently. ‘I’m so sorry I scared you. I’ve been waiting for you for an hour. Are you okay?’
Hand on her chest, cheeks puffed out as she exhaled, she took a moment to recover before standing up straighter, glaring at Sam for frightening her.
‘What were you doing, hiding in the shadows like that?’ she cried. ‘You terrified me! Thought it was someone out to get me, didn’t I?’
Sam pulled a sad face and put his head on one side.
‘I’m sorry. I was just waiting for you, that’s all, because it’s my birthday,’ he said. ‘There’s a dance on and I wanted to ask if you’d come along. I’d love you to come with me.’
He gently grabbed her hand and tugged her a few steps along the pavement and for a split second she almost let herself go, before remembering.
‘I can’t,’ she snapped, shaking off his hand, pushing past him, throwing open the front door, which was always unlocked, and running up to her bedroom. Wrestling with the key in the lock, muttering under her breath, she finally let herself in and slammed the door behind her. The room was dank, dark and unwelcoming. Feeling torn apart with guilt, she saw Sam’s crushed expression in her mind’s eye. Why had she been so rude to him, on his birthday too?
With tears stinging her eyes, she quickly walked to the window and opened it slightly, peering outside. ‘Oh Sam,’ she whispered, hoping he’d still be out there so she could call out an apology, or at least offer him a small wave, but he was gone. The street was empty. Dejected, she moved away from the window and sat on the edge of the creaky bed, feeling like the loneliest person in the world. She imagined Sam joining the noise, laughter and music at the party, dancing with another girl who was light and quick on her feet, with a pretty dress and a beguiling smile – she knew it would only be a matter of time before he forgot that she even existed. She let out a deep sigh and closed her eyes. She was getting what she wanted after all: to be invisible.
Chapter Nine
Elsie had it all planned. She’d waited until Sunday, when, after roasting the neighbourhood’s Sunday dinners in the falling heat of the bakery ovens, William would have a few hours away from his duties at the bakehouse before scraping out the fat, cleaning and relighting the ovens for the week ahead. Wearing a frock she knew William liked, she had washed her hair with soap flakes and pinned it up and had applied leg make-up and a dash of red lipstick. While working her sixty-hour week on the buses Elsie didn’t have the time to wear make-up, but this was a special occasion. Glancing at her reflection in the bottom of a copper pot hanging on the kitchen wall, she frowned. A lot rested on this day.
‘Are you ready then?’ she said to William when he came into the kitchen on his crutches, newly shaved and dressed in his Sunday best. Because of clothes rationing his Sunday best was now the suit he wore any day of the week – and to do all manner of odd jobs around the bakery too – but he still looked smart. It was the same for most men and they weren’t even allowed turn-ups on their trousers now because it was a waste of fabric. He sat down for a moment and smiled at Elsie, who lifted her finger to her lips as she moved closer to the wireless to hear the end of the Radio Doctor’s advice on salad veg. She joined in with the popular ditty:
When salvage is all that remains of the joint
And there isn’t a tin and there isn’t a point
Instead of creating a dance and a ballad
Just raid the allotment and dig up a salad!
With a grin, she held out her hands and stamped her foot as if to say: ‘Ta da!’
‘Ha! Very good.’ William laughed, clapping. ‘Yes, I’m ready. So, are we having salad in our picnic?’
Elsie smiled, nodded, turned off the wireless and picked up the wicker picnic basket, draped in a tea towel embroidered with blue flowers. Slung over her arm was her gas mask case, which she never failed to take with her, even though she’d noticed that some young people were getting lazy about remembering theirs.
‘Just a salad sandwich,’ she said, thinking of the carrot filling she’d mixed with mustard sauce and a dash of vinegar. ‘But it’ll do. Come on, we won’t go far. I know you’re busy later.’
‘I have a whole list of things John has asked me to see to in the bakehouse,’ said William, ‘but we deserve an hour or two together, don’t we?’
With posters pasted up bearing slogans such as ‘Three words to the WHOLE NATION: Go To It!’ on every corner, it was easy to feel guilty about having a few hours off from your war work and duties, even on a Sunday, but this was important.
‘Yes, we do,’ she said, standing on tiptoe so she could kiss him lightly on the lips.
Though she was pretending to be carefree that morning, she felt daunted by the task ahead. William’s horrific nightmares were not abating, and it was time for Elsie to get to the bottom of the problem. She’d made a promise to herself that she’d ask him outright – it was now or never.
‘I’ll leave the door open,’ Audrey called to William and Elsie as they left the bakery backyard and made their way to the clifftop. She was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the back step, and would move on to swilling out the yard.
‘Thanks, Sis,’ said William. ‘Oh, and don’t think I haven’t remembered it’s your birthday this week!’
Audrey stopped scrubbing for a moment and leaned back on her haunches, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
‘Is it?’ said Elsie, her eyes wide. ‘You haven’t mentioned it, Audrey!’
‘Oh, I don’t want to be bothering with my birthday,’ said Audrey. ‘Too much to do. Our mother never used to bother much with my birthday and that’s the way it’s always been. We might have had a jam tart for tea, but nothing else.’
‘Not a cake?’ said Mary, who was crouching next to Audrey, helping to scrub the baking tins, setting them out in rows on the ground to let them dry in the sunshine. It was a mucky job – the little girl’s face, arms and knees were covered with black smudges and she would need a dunk in the tin bath afterwards – but she was happy to be busy and helping. If truth be told, that had been Audrey’s way of helping Mary endure all the grief she’d suffered since arriving at the bakery as an evacuee – she had learned to keep the girl engrossed in a job, whether it be helping make a rag rug, preparing the rabbit stew or helping to black the range.
‘No, love, even though I make them most days,’ said Audrey, with an amused smile. ‘But I don’t mind a jot.’
‘That might be so,’ said William, ‘but you could at least have an hour off the hard work. You shouldn’t be working so hard in your condition.’
‘Oh, be gone with you,’ said Audrey, then, when they were out of earshot, whispered ‘Good luck, Elsie,’ to herself. Audrey had told Elsie to talk to William about the death of his friend and she was worrying about how he would take it. Charlie had sometimes used to say she stuck her nose in where it wasn’t wanted, but Audrey couldn’t sit back and watch her brother and his new wife go on suffering. Life was too short, especially in these times. Returning to her scrubbing, but now thinking of Charlie, she physically longed to hear from him. It had been months since she’d written to break the news of her pregnancy, and she’d written twice again since, but there had been no reply.
