Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (34 page)

She screwed the cup back on the flask and buried it in her gas-mask box, then brushed the dust off the seat of her dungarees and headed for the gate. Peggy would have tea on the table soon and she was rather hoping there was some of that cold pork left.

‘Hello, Ivy.’

She looked round to find that Andy was looming over her with a silly grin on his face and a bunch of drooping wild flowers grasped in his large hand. Her heart did a little skip as she smiled back at him. ‘What you doin’ here then?’

‘Come to walk you ’ome, ain’t I? These are for you,’ he added, thrusting the half-dead flowers at her. ‘Sorry they ain’t much, but it were all I could find.’

Ivy dutifully admired the poor bedraggled things – after all, it was the thought that counted. ‘I am quite capable of walking back on me own, yer know. Ain’t you got work to go to?’

‘I just thought you might like a bit of company, gel. And no, I’ve finished me shift, so I wondered if you’d like to come with me and ’ave a fish supper?’

She was aware of the blush heating her cheeks. ‘That’s ever so nice of you, Andy. But Peggy’s expecting me home for me tea.’ She looked up at him and saw the disappointment in his eyes. ‘But you can walk me home, if it’s not out yer way, like.’

He held out his arm. ‘That’s the best news I’ve had all day,’ he said cheerfully.

She looked up at him as she held onto his arm and tried to match his pace. ‘You ’ad a bad shift then?’

‘Just a bit boring, that’s all. No fires, just cleaning the engines and doing a stocktake on the equipment.’ He grinned down at her and slowed his long stride so she didn’t have to trot to keep up with him. ‘How were your day?’

She shrugged. ‘The usual drilling and banging and lifting ’eavy things,’ she replied. ‘But I can’t believe how quick them builders cleared everything and started again. I hardly recognised the place where those factories were.’

‘It has to be done quick, Ivy. Factories like that are essential if we’re going to win this war.’ He eyed her quizzically. ‘How you ’olding up, gel?’

‘All right. I gotta get on with things, ain’t I? Not much use to anyone moping about and feeling sorry for meself.’

He came to a halt in the High Street and looked down at her solemnly. ‘Brave words, gel. But I know you musta been scared rotten down there.’

‘Yeah, I was,’ she admitted softly. ‘But I’ll get over it.’ She looked up at him and saw the concern in his expression. ‘You must see things – awful things. How do you cope?’

‘We go back to the station, drink lots of tea laced with brandy and talk it out,’ he replied solemnly. ‘Blokes feel it too, you know, and John Hicks understands that, which is why his door is always open if we need to get things off our chest.’ He broke into a smile. ‘Let’s talk about something else before we both get depressed. What sort of fish do you like?’

‘Anything in lovely greasy batter, but not herring,’ she replied and then giggled. ‘But if that’s all they got, I’ll eat it.’

They chattered away as if they’d known each other for years rather than just a few hours, and by the time they’d reached the back gate of Beach View, they were laughing uproariously over a silly situation Andy had found himself in with an enormously fat woman who’d become stuck in her bath.

‘You’d better come up and say hello,’ she said as they reached the scullery. ‘Peggy’s very particular about things like that.’

‘She’s all right, ain’t she? You’re lucky to have fallen on yer feet here.’

Ivy could hear music playing and a great deal of laughter coming from the kitchen. Puzzled, she led Andy up the steps and they both stood in the doorway and took in the sight of Ron waltzing Cordelia around the room to ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’, while Peggy swayed with Daisy in her arms, Fran played along to the tune on the violin, and Sarah danced a very odd version of the waltz with Rita, while Doreen sat chatting to Rosie, the landlady of the Anchor. The kitchen table was laden with plates of food and a lot of bottles, and the volume on the wireless had been turned right up.

‘Blimey,’ she breathed, seeing Cordelia clinging on to Ron for dear life as she tried to keep her footing. ‘It looks like someone’s hit the sherry.’

Peggy saw them and waved them in. ‘We’re celebrating,’ she said above the noise. ‘Come and join us.’ She looked at them both and shot them a lopsided smile. ‘There’s plenty of food, so tuck in, the pair of you.’

‘What you celebrating?’ asked Ivy.

Peggy frowned. ‘I can’t remember,’ she replied. ‘But I think it had something to do with Dorry reading Doris the riot act.’ She giggled. ‘I do know we opened a bottle of Cordelia’s sherry, then Ron came back with Rosie and it all went downhill from there. Join the party, you two, don’t be shy.’

Ivy grinned as Peggy went rather unsteadily to a chair and plumped down with Daisy in her lap. ‘They’re all at least two sheets to the wind,’ she muttered to Andy. ‘We’ve got some catchin’ up to do.’

Ron swayed towards them and pulled a couple of bottles of beer from the collection on the table. ‘Here we are, compliments of my Rosie. Get that down you and enjoy the craic,’ he ordered them. ‘To be sure ’tis a grand night for it, so it is.’

Andy and Ivy exchanged beaming smiles, and once Ivy had put the poor wilting flowers into a jam jar of water, they helped themselves from the tureen of vegetable soup before tucking into the cold pork, spring salad and large chunks of bread. It might not be as intimate as a fish supper in the little chip shop with the check tablecloths and the dim lights, but it was certainly fun.

As they finished their food, Ivy noticed that everyone was looking quite dressed up, and realised she must look a complete shambles with her dirty face and tatty dungarees. She quickly whisked off the scarf she’d knotted over her hair. ‘I’m just gunna get washed and changed,’ she said to Andy, who was watching Rita trying to jitterbug with Rosie.

‘Nah, you look lovely just the way you are.’ He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Come on, gel. Let’s dance.’

There wasn’t much room, even with the table pushed right back against the wall and the playpen relegated to the hall, but the music on the wireless was coming from the Hammersmith Palais, and was far too tempting to ignore, so she happily joined in.

It was almost ten by the time the music mellowed and one by one the others began to collect their things and head for bed. Andy slipped on his uniform jacket, picked up his hat from the dresser and smiled at a yawning Peggy. ‘Thanks, Peggy. It’s been a lovely evening, and that pork and soup were blindin’.’

‘It was a pleasure,’ she said. ‘Though I think we’ll all have sore heads in the morning.’ She smiled as she regarded them both with twinkling eyes. ‘I hope you won’t leave it too long before you come again.’

‘Would it be all right if I took Ivy out for a fish supper on me next night off?’

Peggy’s eyes sparkled even brighter in her flushed face. ‘Of course it would,’ she replied with a chuckle. ‘Though I think that’s really up to Ivy.’

He turned back to Ivy, who was a bit embarrassed at being the centre of attention from a giggling Peggy, Rosie and Doreen. ‘Come on, gel,’ he said softly as he took her hand. ‘You can walk me to the gate.’

She followed him down the scullery steps and through the back door into the garden, her face burning, her pulse racing so hard she felt quite light-headed.

He came to a halt halfway down the path as the tune changed on the wireless, and a mellow voice began to sing one of the songs from the new film,
Casablanca
. As the lovely melody of ‘The Very Thought of You’ drifted out into the night, he took her into his arms and led her into a slow, shuffling dance.

‘Andy,’ she protested softly. ‘What you think yer doing?’

‘Dancing in the garden with my girl,’ he said.

She buried her scarlet face in his midriff. ‘Getting a bit ahead of yerself, ain’tcha?’

‘There’s a war on, Ivy, and as I said before, you gotta strike while the iron’s ’ot.’ He stopped dancing and put his finger under her chin so she had to look up at him. ‘Is that all right with you, gel?’ he murmured.

Ivy’s heart was thudding and her stomach was doing cartwheels as she looked into those deep brown eyes. ‘Yeah, Andy. It’s all right, I reckon.’

The world seemed to stop spinning and she was rather hoping he might kiss her, but the breathless moment was snatched away by the sound of the sirens.

‘I better go and see if they need me at the station,’ he said. ‘Take care of yerself, Ivy, and I’ll see yer as soon as I can.’

As he raced down the path and vaulted over the gate to disappear down the alley, she smiled. ‘And you take care of yourself, Andy Rawlings,’ she whispered. ‘’cos you and me, we got unfinished business.’

At the first wail of the siren, Ron had hurried off with Rosie and Harvey to get to the pub so they could keep Harvey’s pup, Monty, company through the raid. Rita was a bit tiddly, but she seemed to have sobered up enough as she swiftly followed them on her way to the fire station. Cordelia had to be woken from a sherry-induced sleep and was still a bit unsteady on her feet as Sarah helped her down the stairs.

Doreen was impressed by the speed with which Peggy and the rest of the household swung into action, for within minutes of that siren going, everyone was carrying something and heading down the path to the Anderson shelter. And yet the thought of being in there slowed her steps and she hung back.

‘It’s all right,’ said Ivy, taking her hand. ‘I hate the thought of it too after the other night, but together we can get through this.’

Doreen stepped inside and sat down close to the door, her nerves jumping, the effects of the beer rapidly wearing off. It had been such a lovely, happy evening, and she was determined not to ruin it by acting like a fool. She took a deep breath when Peggy closed the door and her heart raced as they sat in the momentary darkness before the lamp was lit.

Peggy seemed to understand how uneasy Doreen felt, for she smiled across at her and patted her knee. ‘I’ve tried to make it homely,’ she said, ‘but none of us like it. Let’s just hope this is a false alarm.’

‘It’s not the raid, or the noise,’ Doreen replied. ‘It’s being enclosed with other people.’

‘To be sure it’s a terrible thing, claustrophobia,’ said Fran. ‘Peggy, do you happen to have a brown paper bag in that box of yours?’

‘Well, yes, dear. But I’ve got Daisy’s rusks in it.’ She scrabbled about in the emergency box, pulled it out and tipped the rusks into a tin mug before shaking the bag free of crumbs. ‘What on earth do you want it for?’

Fran handed it to Doreen. ‘When you feel the panic coming on, take deep breaths into this. It will help, I promise.’

Doreen eyed the paper bag, not at all convinced.

‘It does work,’ said Sarah. ‘A girl at school suffered panic attacks, but once our teacher showed her what to do, she was fine.’

Doreen felt very foolish sitting there clasping that paper bag as the planes took off from Cliffe aerodrome. She felt the squeeze of Ivy’s hand to reassure her, and the tremble in her small frame, and realised that she was also finding it very hard to be shut in here. ‘Let’s sing a song to drown out the noise,’ she said. ‘What about “Little Brown Jug”?’

They sang loudly and defiantly, clapping their hands and stamping their feet to drown out the distant crumps and thuds of exploding bombs, interspersed with the rattle of the ack-ack guns and the boom of the Bofors guns that were strung all along the southern coast.

Peggy made tea on the camping stove, while Daisy sat on her rug clapping her hands, and Cordelia eventually slid lower in her deckchair and nodded off.

But then the lamp went out, plunging them into absolute darkness.

Doreen heard Ivy’s gasp of fear and felt the tremor run through her body, and although she could feel the panic rising as her chest tightened and her heart began to thunder, she knew Ivy needed her help. She gripped Ivy’s hand as Peggy scrabbled about in the pitch-black for the matches to relight the gas ring on the camping stove. The darkness was closing in and she could hear the sounds of those voices crying out in the tunnel – could feel the press of people, and smell the fear.

‘Use the bag, Dorry,’ said Fran calmly.

Doreen opened the bag, but instead of pressing it to her own mouth, she handed it to Ivy. She heard her breathing deeply, felt the tremors begin to lessen and marvelled at how simple and efficient Fran’s remedy was. Then she felt Ivy pressing the bag into her hand and after only a few deep breaths, she too began to feel much calmer. The bag went back and forth between them and by the time Peggy had managed to light the gas ring, their breathing had returned to normal.

‘There, see? I told you,’ said Fran. ‘Keep the bag and use it until you find you don’t need to any more.’

‘Are you both all right?’ asked a concerned Peggy.

Doreen and Ivy looked at one another and smiled, for they’d come through and knew they would do so again.

It was now late March and Doreen had been home for almost two weeks. Although she was still grieving deeply for Archie, the troubling nightmares and flashing images had not been as bothersome. Her fear of dark, enclosed places still made her panic, but having seen how Ivy had begun to cope so well, she knew she had to overcome it. Now, every time the sirens went she was first in the shelter with the emergency box and blankets, and when the door was shut she endured those first few minutes of darkness determinedly until the lantern was lit. At night, she drew the curtains and blackout and used only a small nursery lamp to chase away the shadows. She was getting better, feeling stronger, and it was all down to Peggy’s love and Ivy’s stalwart support.

She finished reading the letters that had come from her girls, and then opened the one that looked rather official. It was actually from Veronica, who’d filched the office stationery to write to her. Work on the experiments was going well, Maynard was as impossible as ever, but the project he’d been working on was due to be tested sometime the following month. She couldn’t go into detail, of course, but Doreen knew what she was talking about, and was quite excited by the thought that the bouncing bomb would be tested again – and this time at sea.