Backstreet Child (61 page)

‘I shouldn’t ’ave come ’ere wiv yer. I was wrong,’ Rachel said quickly, her voice choked with emotion.

The young man sat up and leaned forward, his arms resting on his drawn-up legs. ‘I know, you’re spoken for,’ he replied. ‘It’s all right, I understand.’

Rachel stood up and brushed the hay from her uniform. ‘I really am sorry, Matt,’ she told him kindly. ‘I shouldn’t ’ave led yer on.’

He stood up and faced her, his face still flushed. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll just put it down to the war, shall we?’

They left the barn and walked back through the night towards the sound of music, Rachel holding onto his arm. At the entrance to the hall Rachel turned to him. ‘If I could ’ave loved yer I would ’ave done, Matt,’ she said softly.

He merely nodded and as they walked into the bright light he turned and smiled as the band struck up with ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

‘Let’s drink to that,’ he said.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Bella Galloway walked unsteadily into the untidy room and slumped down in an armchair. The screwed-up cushion pressed awkwardly into the small of her back. She grunted as she moved forward and straightened it, leaning over to pick up an old copy of the
Illustrated News
which she flicked through quickly. The room was stale and the curtains were still drawn, although the sun was shining brightly outside. Bella was recovering from her most recent bout with the bottle and she could feel her raw throat and the tightness in her chest from the packet of Chesterfield she had smoked. Her head was pounding and her mouth was dry. She desperately needed a drink, but she dare not, not this early. She had only just got up.

For a while she sat staring down at the cluttered coffee table as the events of the previous night slowly came back to her. The argument had been over the usual thing, but on this particular occasion it had become nasty. Frank had threatened her with violence, grabbing her and throwing her roughy down onto the bed before storming out of the house. He had been drinking too, she recalled. His breath smelt of whisky and he was in a violent temper. He had accused her of being a slut, a money-grabbing whore who was not even a pathetic excuse for a wife, and unless she mended her ways and started to keep the house clean, he would beat her.

It all came back now, and Bella sat in the darkened room brooding on her change of fortune. Once she had been the toast of the theatre world, a young star with a good singing voice and acting ability. They had all told her so. Even the top impresarios had come to see her perform. The damn war had been the start of her decline, she groaned to herself, that and marrying Frank Galloway. He had never been any good to her. In fact he had speeded her downfall by his bad manners and his uncultured behaviour in front of her influential friends. He had a lot to answer for. If he had been a more strict father perhaps Caroline would have turned out to be a more loving, loyal daughter. Perhaps then she wouldn’t have sold herself to that double-crossing, no-good Graham Cunningham. All his plans for her had been just empty promises, and then he had set out to use Caroline in the same way. Once he had had his way with her, he had ditched her for some other star-struck young thing.

Bella kicked at the coffee table in her anger and slumped back in the armchair. Caroline had not been in touch since she left the house in a huff, and that was three weeks ago. Or was it four? No matter. She would see the error of her ways pretty soon.

A strong coffee, that’s what’s needed, Bella told herself. She would take a shower, do her hair, then clean the house up. Better rest for a while though, there was plenty of time. Frank would not be home for hours, if he bothered to come home at all.

The day wore on slowly for Bella and gradually she began to recover. The fresh bottle of gin remained unopened, although she had a fight not to take her first drink of the day. She showered and tried to do something with her hair, then she made up her face and changed into a different dress. The housework was a chore that she did not relish, and after hiding the magazines and papers behind a cushion and emptying the ashtrays she had had enough. The remains of last night’s meal were still caked to the plates and she almost heaved as she scraped them clean and dropped them in the hot suds. The curtains looked ready for a clean and the carpet was stained in places but they would have to wait. She couldn’t be expected to do it all in one go, whatever Frank thought.

In the bedroom both their clothes were scattered messily around, and as Bella set to work putting Frank’s suit on a hanger, a small diary slipped from a pocket onto the bed. She picked it up and went into the lounge. She’d earned a drink now, she decided, and as soon as she had made herself comfortable in the armchair with a large gin and tonic at her elbow, she opened the diary and looked through it. There were a lot of entries which made little sense to her, but the initials P.H. kept appearing among the pages. It could mean public house, she thought. No, it must mean something else. Bella sat trying to think of anyone Frank had mentioned who had those initials but no one came to mind. She sipped her drink and then went to the telephone diary on the sideboard and scanned the list. Suddenly she saw the name Theo Harrison. That was the one-time friend of Frank’s who had gone insane and accused him of seeing his wife, Bella recalled. Frank had told her about it and she remembered him laughing it off. She had believed him and paid little attention to it, since she was heavily involved with her agent, Myer, at the time. Theo’s wife was named Peggy.

The sun was slipping down in the west as Bella poured herself another stiff gin and tonic. She remembered clearly Frank telling her that Theo had died in the asylum towards the end of last year. Frank had started seeing Theo’s widow, she felt sure. The first entry of the initials was against 5 January and they continued throughout the book, until the last entry on 2 May. That was two weeks ago. Bella sipped her drink thoughtfully. Frank was often out in the evenings. There were his masonic functions and the boxing tournaments, apart from his drinking nights with clients. Besides, he could have been seeing the Harrison woman during the day. Maybe she was being too hasty, though. The initials could stand for anything. She would need more to go on.

Bella felt apprehensive as she glanced up at the ornate clock over the fireplace. It was nearing seven o’clock and Frank had still not come home. The diary had been put back in his coat pocket and the room looked neat and tidy. There was nothing he could find fault with this evening, she thought. The casserole was doing nicely, and she had found some tinned fruit in the larder which she intended to serve with cream.

She drew the curtains and straightened the sideboard, moving the telephone diary away from the trailing phone lead. It was then that a thought struck her. She opened the diary and found what she was looking for. Then she hurried into the bedroom, took out the diary from Frank’s coat pocket and thumbed through it. She scurried back into the lounge and checked the dates against those in the telephone diary. That was it. The initials P.H. were listed against Frank’s masonic evenings, and on those nights he always came in late, sometimes in the early hours. He had noted the masonic dates in the diary long ago, she remembered him doing it. The next date was on the Wednesday of next week.

Bella glanced at the gin bottle on top of the drinks cabinet. Maybe just one more, she thought. She would need to be steady if she was going to confront that double-dealing husband of hers.

Carrie hummed happily to herself as she cleaned the house. The letter had arrived that very morning but she had been too nervous to open it. Joe had taken it from her and she had waited with bated breath while he opened it and read it in silence. His face dropped and he looked up at her without speaking. Suddenly he beamed and grabbed her in his arms. ‘Yer’ve got it, Carrie!’ he cried.

‘We’ve got it,’ she remembered correcting him.

It was the big one. The long-term, lucrative contract with the brewers which would set her up for the future, won against the competition of the Galloway tender. Carrie saw it as another step towards her avowed goal of seeing her arch rival’s business crumble. The next stage would be a country-wide permit, which would allow her transport firm to deal with the big local traders and their depots in the provinces. If she was successful in getting it, then the sky would be the limit. She had already bought another secondhand Albion lorry in good condition from a local firm that was selling up, and her letter to the labour exchange, asking for two more drivers, was ready to be sent.

Carrie had another good reason to be happy. There had been a letter from Rachel that morning too. Tony O’Reilly was finally coming home and he had been promoted to sergeant in the field. Rachel told her that she had leave outstanding and was going to save it until her man got his leave. She went on to say that the letter she had received from Tony was nearly two months old, which meant he could already be on his way.

The morning’s news put all the household in a happy frame of mind. Joe decided it was time he rebuilt the roof of the vehicle shed, which had been badly damaged in the last air raid, and Nellie put on her best hat and coat to pay an overdue visit to her old friends in Page Street. And when Tom Armfield drove into the yard, Carrie called him into the office and put her proposition about promotion to him, which he promptly accepted.

The clandestine movement of troops and supplies to the south coast was now taking place on such a large scale that it ceased to remain secret. Everyone was talking about the endless trains and lorries which were heading south, and in large areas of southern England the streets and lanes were becoming snarled up with military transport of all kinds. From bases around England the loud roar of bombers heading out on their missions was heard night and day and it was apparent to everyone that the invasion was at hand.

In the control tower on a bomber base in Lincoln the personnel were anxiously awaiting the return of the squadron stragglers. Since early dawn the first of the Lancasters had touched down, some riddled with cannon fire and flak, others with engines smoking. Now it was quiet and the losses were being reckoned. Four planes were missing, and the news spread through the base. Personnel not on duty stood around, scanning the clear morning sky. Rachel stood beside her friend Connie and the two looked away into the far horizon. News suddenly came through and a cheer went up. C for Charlie had ditched in the Channel and the crew had been picked up unharmed.

The senior duty officer was about to log the three remaining planes as lost when a crackling sound started to come through on the loudspeaker. O for Oliver was limping home with two engines out and wounded aboard. Word spread fast and everyone stood scanning the sky for the stricken plane’s arrival. In the control room the faces of the controllers were set firm. The pilot sounded calm but everyone was aware of the dangers involved. The plane’s undercarriage had been damaged and it would have to be a belly landing. Fire tenders and an ambulance took up their places on the edge of the runway. The waiting seemed to last for ever.

Rachel scanned the sky, a silent prayer in her heart. Aboard O for Oliver was young Matt Williams, not yet twenty years old. He was just a boy, a lonely, brave lad who had seemed to have an insight into life far beyond his tender years. Rachel bit her lip as she waited. Experience told her that if the plane did not make an appearance very soon, it would have gone down.

Her heart leapt as a cry went up. ‘There it is!’

She could see the Lancaster clearly now. It was coming in very low, a trail of black smoke spreading out behind it. It seemed to stand still in the sky for a long time and then suddenly it banked and came down in the final approach, inching lower and lower with its undercarriage still raised. It bounced once then skidded along the tarmac towards them. Black smoke billowed out, covering it, then it skidded completely round. The fire tender started to move towards it when the whole plane erupted in flames. A deafening explosion ripped it apart, reducing it to a blazing mass of twisted metal in seconds. There was nothing anyone could do. The crew of O for Oliver had perished.

The tragedy weighed heavily on everyone in the air force base. Rachel lay on her bed that night, her red-rimmed eyes staring up unseeing at the dusty rafters. Matt was gone. How many more young men like Matt would perish before this war was over?

Footsteps sounded in the corridor and Connie came into the dormitory. She sat down on her bed next to Rachel and stared down at the floor without saying anything for a time. When she finally spoke her voice was gravelly. ‘I’ve just come from the canteen. Did you know it was Matt Williams’ twentieth birthday today?’ she asked.

Rachel eased herself up onto her arm and looked at her best friend. ‘It was Matt’s twentieth mission,’ she replied.

Billy Sullivan went to see Father Kerrigan one evening but he was unsuccessful in persuading the priest that something more had to be done about the memorial stone in the ruined gymnasium. Father Kerrigan was his usual sedate self and he tried to assure his agitated parishioner that everything had been done to get the stone removed into safe keeping.

‘But the demolition men might cart it away,’ Billy said anxiously.

‘Be sure it won’t happen, Billy,’ the priest told him blithely. ‘I’ve been on to the firm concerned and they say that all care will be taken to preserve the stone in pristine condition.’

Billy came away from the church feeling very concerned, and he said as much to Danny when he called into the Bargee for a pint.