Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (13 page)

‘There, there, ducks. Best to let it all out.’

Doreen had never felt so helpless. Ever since she’d turned sixteen she’d made her own decisions, carving her career path, determined to achieve something that would give her and her children respectability and a decent way of life. Yet now she felt as weak and vulnerable as a small child; unable to master the pain of her loss, or the tears that seemed to come from a bottomless well of grief.

And yet the tears did eventually stop flowing even though the pain remained raw, and she eased herself from the woman’s embrace rather shamefacedly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as she used the borrowed handkerchief and tried to gather her wits.

‘There ain’t nothing to be sorry about, love,’ the woman said comfortingly. ‘It’s been a terrible night for everyone.’ She patted Doreen’s knee. ‘Would it help to talk about Archie?’

Doreen suddenly didn’t want to share her memories of Archie with anyone, even with this lovely kind woman, so she shook her head. ‘That’s very kind of you, but I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than listen to me.’ She glanced across at the miserable huddle of children who were now being cared for by a group of nuns. ‘What will happen to them?’

‘They’ll be looked after very well at the convent until relatives can be found to take them in.’ The woman sighed deeply. ‘Poor little mites. As if they ’aven’t seen enough death and destruction without this.’

Doreen thought of her own two girls and sent up a silent prayer of thanks that they hadn’t been orphaned tonight. It was hard enough being parted from them in the first place, and although Peggy would take them in and raise them as her own if anything happened to her, she couldn’t bear the thought of not being here to watch them grow and make their own lives.

She realised then that although she was almost drowning in grief, she should count her blessings and do her very best to dredge up the courage to face the coming days. She drank the tea which was now even more sour, and then reached for her handbag to find her cigarettes.

‘I’ve lost my bag,’ she gasped, ‘and it’s got my identification papers in it, and money and my ration book, and …’ She shivered as she remembered it also contained Archie’s last letter, his photograph and those of her daughters.

‘All the abandoned bags and bundles were brought in ’ere,’ said the woman. ‘They’re in the other room under the watchful eye of Mrs Pendlebury – and believe me, she won’t let no one take anything what ain’t theirs.’

Doreen suddenly remembered her overnight bag, gas-mask box and Archie’s kitbag. ‘I have to find them,’ she said and got to her feet. Her head swam and nausea churned her stomach, and she sat back down heavily.

‘You just put yer ’ead down to yer knees, ducks. After the shock you’ve ’ad it’s no surprise you feel giddy.’

Doreen breathed deeply and evenly until the nausea subsided and her head cleared, then drank the glass of water the woman offered her. ‘You’re very kind, and I don’t even know your name,’ she murmured as the woman placed her coat, hat and scarf on the chair beside her.

‘I’m Winnie,’ she said and smiled.

‘I’m Doreen.’

Winnie nodded. ‘Feeling a bit better now?’

Doreen nodded. ‘I’d better go and find those things,’ she said, her gaze straying to the door at the end of the room where people were going in and out. She slipped on her coat, which was still unpleasantly damp, and stuffed her ruined hat and soggy scarf into the pockets.

‘If you don’t mind me saying, ducks, you ain’t from round ’ere, are yer?’ When Doreen shook her head, she continued. ‘You got far to travel, love? Only you’d be better off staying the night now, ’cos most of the trains have stopped.’

Doreen hadn’t thought as far ahead as to what she should do about getting home. ‘I’m living near Sevenoaks, but I can’t go back there yet. I have to arrange … arrange things for Archie.’

Winnie nodded. ‘You got somewhere to stay? Only we got emergency shelter in the Pentecostal church hall. It’s basic, but the linen’s clean and you’ll get a decent meal if nothing else.’

Doreen couldn’t express her gratitude for this stranger’s kindness, so she simply grasped her hand and kissed her cheek. ‘Give me the address and I’ll find it,’ she managed through the gathering lump in her throat.

‘Bless you, ducks, it’s two doors down from ’ere. You can ’ardly get lost.’ Winnie patted her knee and stood up. ‘Now, do you want me to come with you to find yer things, or will you be all right on yer own?’

‘I’ll be fine, really I will,’ she replied with rather more determination than she felt. ‘Thank you for everything, Winnie. I won’t forget your kindness.’ She shot her a watery smile and headed for the other room before she disgraced herself again by bursting into tears.

The woman who stood guard over the piles of bedding, bags, shoes, coats and cases was a very different type to Winnie. Tall and ramrod straight in her severe dark green uniform, she possessed a formidable expression and suspicious eyes.

‘What are you searching for exactly?’ she asked without preamble.

‘My handbag, overnight case, gas-mask box and my …’ Doreen caught sight of Archie’s kitbag lying at the end of the table. ‘And Archie’s Navy kitbag.’

‘He’ll have to collect that himself. I can’t possibly allow a civilian to claim service property.’

Her tone snapped Doreen out of her debilitating lethargy. ‘Archie died tonight, so he won’t be able to collect his bag,’ she retorted. ‘I can tell you exactly what’s in it, because I saw him pack it this morning.’

‘My condolences.’ The stiff nod and the cool gaze belied the grudging words. She walked to the end of the table and wrestled the heavy bag to the floor. ‘What was the last thing he packed?’

Doreen could barely contain her anger at the sight of this awful woman mauling Archie’s belongings. ‘A brown leather case containing his hairbrushes; and another containing nail scissors, toothbrush, paste and a white flannel.’

The woman loosened the cord at the neck of the bag and peered inside, her hand dipping in to check that both items were there. ‘Very well. Which handbag and overnight case are yours?’

Doreen pointed them out. ‘You’ll find my MOD identification card, ration book and a letter addressed to me in that,’ she said as the damned woman picked up her bag and started rooting about in it. ‘The holdall contains silk underwear, a cream satin nightdress edged with lace, cosmetics, a black dress, spare trousers, and a pair of high-heeled pumps.’

The woman did a cursory check and then eyed Doreen knowingly, for not many women carried such exotic lingerie and underwear about unless they were planning some mischief. She grudgingly handed over Doreen’s property. ‘I can’t do anything about the gas mask, they all look the same.’

‘Mine has my name on it and the insignia of the MOD.’ Doreen snatched up the gas-mask box from the jumbled pile in the middle of the table and held it out. ‘Do you want to search this too, or have you satisfied your curiosity by going through my underwear?’

‘There’s no need—’

‘There’s every bloody need,’ snapped Doreen. ‘I lost the man I love today, and it wouldn’t have hurt you to wind that stiff neck of yours in, and at least
try
to be human.’ Before the woman could respond, she’d grabbed Archie’s kitbag and was dragging it out of the room, her anger once again lending her strength and the will to fight back.

‘Blimey, love, you look madder than a scalded cat.’

‘You need to get someone else to look after those things,’ she replied to a puzzled Winnie. ‘That woman’s an unfeeling witch.’ With that, she stormed out of the drill hall and went to find the emergency shelter.

She was welcomed with a warm smile and once she’d filled in the form detailing her reasons for being there, was shown the makeshift canteen, the washrooms and toilets before being led to one of the many beds that filled the crowded church hall.

The noise was quite deafening, even this late at night. Children ran about, babies cried and women gossiped. Bundles of bedding, clothes and sticks of furniture had been piled up everywhere and Doreen suspected they were the remnants of the lives these people had managed to rescue from their bombed-out homes. She also noted that those bundles were carefully guarded at all times, and so had to conclude that there must be a history of thieving in this sort of place – which, although it saddened her, didn’t really surprise her.

She sank onto the thin mattress and heard the springs complain, but at least the bedding looked freshly laundered and the pillow felt soft and very tempting. She was deathly tired, aching with sorrow as well as the bruises she suspected darkened her battered body, and was still haunted by the terror of that black hellhole and the sight of Archie lying dead in her arms.

The woman sitting on the next bed eyed her speculatively, her gaze roaming over her good clothes and the kitbag. ‘It ain’t much, but it’s home, ain’t it?’ she said as she lit a fag and stuck it in the corner of her mouth.

‘It certainly is,’ Doreen replied coolly as she hauled the kitbag onto the bed and began to stuff the contents of her holdall into it. She saw the woman’s eyes flit over the now empty bag and knew that by morning it would probably have disappeared. She couldn’t have cared less. Archie’s kitbag was the precious one and she could sleep with her handbag under her pillow.

Leaving the empty case on her bed, she dragged the kitbag into the washroom, locked the stall and sank down onto the lavatory lid, head in hands, the tears so very close to falling again as exhaustion overwhelmed her. Then, determined to be brave and strong, she scrubbed her face with her hands, lit a cigarette and took her time to smoke it. She’d always had a bit of a temper and it had often got her into trouble, but tonight it had certainly helped her to focus again, and once she’d had a good night’s sleep she would be more able to face the terrible task of making Archie’s funeral arrangements.

Flushing the butt down the lavatory, she went to have a good wash. She wouldn’t get undressed, she decided; the negligee was far too revealing, and despite the number of people crammed into the hall, it was cold and draughty.

Returning to her bed she was mildly surprised to see that her case was still there. Pulling back the blanket and sheet, she took off her shoes and just managed to stuff them into Archie’s bag. She shook out her damp overcoat, draping the sodden scarf and hat over the bedhead, and then climbed into bed, tucked her handbag under her pillow and pulled Archie’s kitbag alongside her. It was almost as if he was there with her as she draped her arm over it and caught a whisper of his cologne.

She closed her eyes, attempting to shut out the noise, the bright lights and the terrible images of being in that black tunnel. Tomorrow promised to be another harrowing day and she would have given anything to have Peggy by her side.

Darling Peggy had always been there to comfort and console when she’d scraped a knee or felt ill, or if Doris had been impossibly overbearing and bossy. She’d always been ready to quickly defend her little sister, even if it had been Doreen’s mercurial temper that had led her into trouble in the first place. Doreen found a modicum of comfort from those childhood memories, and she clung to them like a lifeline.

As the youngest of the three Dawson girls by almost ten years, Doreen had been lucky to have Peggy as her little mother, for their own was always busy with running the boarding house while her father worked long hours on the fishing boats. Childhood was such a simple time, she thought sadly. She hadn’t known then about wars and unfaithful, spendthrift husbands; the struggle involved in trying to raise two girls of her own while holding down a job – or experienced the death of someone so loved it was as if a part of her had been ripped out.

The yearning for her sister and the familiarity of her family home was almost too much to bear, and as the tears came and she buried her face in the pillow, she held Archie’s kitbag close and wondered how she would survive this crippling sense of aloneness.

The party at the Anchor was in full swing, even though it had started much later than planned because of the raid. Peggy came downstairs once she’d made sure that Daisy was asleep in Rosie’s spare bedroom, and stood for a while by the bar to watch the fun.

Harvey was stretched out in front of the inglenook fireplace with his pup, Monty, curled against his belly. Fran was playing the violin with her usual verve, while someone was bashing out a tune on the old piano and several servicemen were accompanying them with harmonicas, tin whistles and guitars. Sarah was looking very pale, but Jane’s face was radiant with excitement as she and Rita linked arms and danced in a circle.

‘It feels strange not having Mary here to play the piano,’ said Rosie with a wistful sigh. ‘That chap’s not half as good, and I do miss her company and her lovely smile.’

Peggy understood Rosie’s melancholy, for Mary had become an intrinsic part of Rosie’s life – especially after the revelation that she’d been the child Rosie had planned to adopt eighteen years ago. ‘She’ll visit again when she can,’ she soothed.

Rosie nodded and pushed back her platinum curls. ‘I know, and we write regularly, so we won’t lose touch.’ She glanced across at her two middle-aged barmaids to make sure they were coping and then turned her attention back to Ron, who was enthusiastically playing the spoons. ‘I couldn’t have coped with any of it without Ron,’ she said. ‘He’s been my rock over the past few months.’

Peggy’s smile was wry, for she could think of a lot of ways to describe Ron – and although he could be a rock at times, he was more often than not a ruddy nuisance. ‘Thanks for laying this on, Rosie. I simply couldn’t have managed it.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She grinned, her blue eyes flashing. ‘And you know me, Peg. Any excuse for a party – especially on a Wednesday when it’s usually quiet.’

Peggy laughed. ‘Always the businesswoman, eh?’ She noticed that Cordelia was on her third sherry. ‘I’d better go and persuade Cordelia not to drink all of that,’ she said, ‘otherwise Ron will have to carry her home.’

Cordelia was jigging about in her chair in time to the music as she sang out of key and watched the girls dancing by the piano. ‘Isn’t this fun?’ she shouted over the noise.