by Ellie Dean
She slumped in the chair as the tension and fear left her. Jim was alive and would recover, and although she would have given anything to be able to rush to his side, the impossibility of doing such a thing made her thankful that he was in the best place with the best people looking after him.
‘Where’s that letter?’ she asked. She took it from Ron and swiftly read through it, thankful that Ron had prepared her for what it contained and that the nurse had laid out Jim’s situation clearly and that he would indeed recover. She folded the letter back into the envelope and reached for the telegram. The words were stark, telling her very little, and she squeezed her eyes shut on the tears that threatened.
‘Thank God for that girl’s letter,’ she breathed. ‘If I’d only had that telegram I would have feared the worst and gone out of my mind with worry.’
‘Aye, Jim understood that, which is why he was so determined the nurse wrote to you. I don’t know how the letter got here at the same time as the telegram, but I’m thinking it’s a wee miracle that it did.’
Peggy nodded and put both envelopes in her apron pocket. ‘Thank you, all of you,’ she said. ‘I know how hard you must have found it to keep this to yourselves, and coming so swiftly after Gracie’s awful news, it’s rather knocked me for six.’ She gave them a wan smile to assure them she was all right. ‘It’s been a traumatic day all round, and with the children likely to wake early, I think I’ll turn in.’
She lay staring into the deep shadows cast by the soft nightlight long after everyone else had gone to bed. As the children snuffled in their sleep she held the photograph of Jim to her heart, hoping that her thoughts and fervent prayers would somehow wing their way to him on the other side of the world.
The nurse’s letter had imbued in her an absolute faith that he would pull through – but then he’d be sent back to his regiment to join in the fighting again.
He’d been lucky this time. Yet for every day this war continued his chances of escaping further injury – or worse – lessened. And that was the awful spectre that lurked in the shadows and kept her awake.
16
Peggy managed to get through Friday, simply because she kept busy and made sure she didn’t have time to think. Solly had been tremendously sympathetic when she’d told him about Jim, and even suggested she take the day off so she had a long weekend to come to terms with what had happened, but she’d refused his kind offer, knowing that she needed to work through this and firmly focus on the fact that Jim was alive and would recover.
She’d sat down that night and written Jim a long letter, telling him how much she loved him and how grateful she was that he’d asked the nurse to write to her so the telegram didn’t frighten her out of her wits. Having sealed the aerogram, she then wrote to Anne and Cissy. Ron had gone up to Cliffe aerodrome early on Friday morning and managed to get to see Cissy and assure her that her father would come through and her mother was being well looked after by everyone at Beach View, but Peggy needed to underline the fact that she didn’t want Cissy worrying about her and taking unnecessary time off by coming to visit.
Saturday morning was chaotic, with the two little girls getting under everyone’s feet, and Rita arriving with Peter Ryan to begin putting Cordelia’s chairlift on the stairs. Ron quickly disappeared with Harvey, Doris and Ivy went to work, and the cat decided to make herself scarce.
Much to Peggy’s relief, Sarah and Fran took the children to the park so they could let off steam, and she could get on with the washing and the housework. Yet as the banging and clattering carried on in the hall, she began to wonder if the house was about to fall down around her ears.
‘Danuta’s helping them now, but they’re making surprisingly little mess,’ said Cordelia as she came into the garden to help hang out the washing. ‘Although I’m not at all sure I’ll feel terribly safe being carted up and down in that contraption.’
‘We’ll get Ron to test it out before I’ll let you anywhere near it,’ said Peggy, who had grave doubts over the whole enterprise. ‘If it takes his weight, then I’ll give it a go. I’d hate to see you getting hurt.’
Cordelia eyed her over her sunglasses. ‘I still have a sense of adventure despite my age, and if he dares, then so will I,’ she said stoutly.
‘He has to stay at home for more than five minutes before we can get him to do anything,’ said Peggy, hooking the long forked pole into the line to raise it so the washing caught the warm breeze coming off the sea. ‘I honestly don’t know where he gets his energy from.’
‘I suspect Rosie has something to do with that,’ Cordelia twittered. ‘There’s definitely been a silly grin on his face and a spring in his step these past couple of weeks.’
Peggy smiled. ‘So I noticed. It’s about time those two sorted themselves out. My best hat is gathering dust since the last wedding.’ She eyed the unusually small load of laundry with satisfaction and then hitched the empty basket onto her hip. ‘Let’s go and see what they’re all up to in the hall.’
She helped Cordelia up the concrete steps, then they crossed the kitchen and Peggy opened the door into the hall, expecting to be met by a cloud of dust and a terrible mess. ‘Goodness,’ she breathed at the hive of industry going on without so much as a grain of dust.
She was a bit concerned that the stair carpet hadn’t been taken up and winced at the damage they must be doing to it as Rita and Danuta held the long metal runner that Peter was bolting into a second runner which followed the contours of each stair. Another ran parallel with them against the base of the bannisters, and sitting in the middle of the hall was a sturdy chair which had been bolted to a thick metal platform fixed to four heavy wheels.
‘Danuta, please be careful,’ she pleaded. ‘You can’t afford to damage your hands, and if that thing falls on your feet—’
‘I am in no danger,’ Danuta interrupted. ‘Please don’t worry. It’s good to be useful, and I’m having fun.’
‘Yeah, don’t fuss, Aunty Peg,’ said Rita, straining to keep the heavy runner steady. ‘We’ve got it all under control.’
Peter Ryan finished fixing a bolt and looked over his shoulder with a broad smile. ‘Reckon she’ll be right,’ he drawled. ‘But a cup of tea would go down well. This is thirsty work.’
Peggy took the hint and she and Cordelia went back into the kitchen. She placed the kettle on the hob, hunted out cups and regarded the old tea leaves drying out in a saucer. ‘These have already been used twice,’ she muttered, ‘and they deserve a good strong cuppa after all their hard work.’
She fetched the almost empty packet of tea from the larder, spooned some into the warm teapot and then sat down to have a cigarette whilst the kettle boiled. ‘I wish I’d remembered to put tea on the shopping list,’ she said, ‘but with one thing and another it slipped my mind.’
‘That’s hardly surprising in the circumstances,’ said Cordelia. ‘But maybe Doris checked the larder before she took the list into town earlier. She keeps banging on about how efficient she is, so I wouldn’t put it past her.’
‘I’m still finding it very hard to take in how much she’s changed,’ Peggy confided. ‘That job was certainly the making of her. She’d never have dreamt of giving up her room before.’
‘It’s certainly given her something else to think about other than herself,’ said Cordelia with a sniff. ‘And it sounds as if she and the Colonel are getting on very well.’
Peggy grinned as she made the tea and gave it a good stir before leaving it to brew in the big brown pot. ‘So I’ve heard, and if it’s true, then I’m delighted – but she’s being very tight-lipped about it.’
‘Probably doesn’t want Ivy teasing her,’ said Cordelia dryly. ‘Now there’s a friendship I didn’t expect.’
Peggy poured the tea and placed three cups on a tray. ‘Neither did I, but this war has changed people – made them realise that if we don’t pull together, we won’t win – and I’m glad the happy atmosphere in the house is restored. We couldn’t have go
ne on the way things were.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Cordelia firmly.
The telephone rang just as Peggy entered the hall, so she handed over the tray to Peter and went to answer it.
‘Mrs Reilly?’
Peggy didn’t recognise the voice. ‘Yes?’ she replied warily.
‘Mrs Lloyd-Hughes here,’ the rather bossy upper-crust voice continued. ‘I need to talk to Mrs Williams.’
Peggy had a strong suspicion that the caller was one of the women who’d snubbed Doris at the memorial service. ‘Mrs Williams is unavailable at the moment,’ she said crisply. ‘Can I give her a message?’
‘That’s most inconvenient,’ the other woman snapped. ‘She’s needed urgently to help with the children’s charity Lady Chumley was setting up before the unfortunate business at Mrs Williams’s house.’
Peggy was about to comment when she charged on in her hectoring tone.
‘And then there is the matter of supervising Cliffehaven’s branch of the WVS. I cannot possibly do it alone, and I’m most disappointed in Mrs Williams for leaving me in the lurch.’
‘Mrs Williams has just been widowed,’ said Peggy icily, ‘and has far more pressing things to keep her occupied than running about after you. She has not left you in the lurch at all; in fact her resignation from her post with the WVS was tendered some time ago, so I would suggest it’s bad management on your part that you haven’t organised a replacement.’
‘Well, really!’ the other woman huffed. ‘I’ve never been spoken to like that, and will not stand for it. Don’t you know who I am?’
‘No, and I don’t care, either,’ said Peggy, who was now rather enjoying herself. ‘But I do know that if you’re one of the snooty, self-seeking crowd who shunned my sister at the memorial luncheon, she’s better off without you.’
There was a long silence at the other end before Peggy heard the clearing of a throat. ‘The charity work we do is far more important than personal grudges and perceived slights,’ Mrs Lloyd-Hughes said eventually.
‘Charity begins at home,’ said Peggy. ‘And if any of you had shown the slightest kindness or thought to how my sister felt after what you term as “the unfortunate business” that saw five women killed and Doris made homeless, she might have been willing to help.’
‘I apologise if Mrs Williams feels we’ve been neglectful,’ the woman said stiffly. ‘But I need her services, both with the charity and the WVS. Please see to it that you pass on my message the moment Mrs Williams is available.’
Peggy heard the sharp clatter of the receiver being slammed down at the other end and softly replaced her own. ‘Oh, I’ll pass it on all right, but I’ll jolly well make sure Doris has nothing to do with any of it.’ She turned to see that all work had stopped on the stairs and everyone was looking at her wide-eyed.
‘Strewth, Mrs Reilly,’ breathed Peter. ‘I wouldn’t fancy getting on the wrong side of you. You’re quite the tigress when you get going, aren’t you?’
‘Well done, Peggy,’ said Rita, shooting her a grin. ‘It’s about time someone told that snooty lot where to get off. I bet whoever that was had never heard the like.’
‘I don’t understand what that was about,’ said Danuta with a twinkle in her eyes, ‘but I think you enjoyed it.’
‘Damn right, I did,’ said Peggy, before going back into the kitchen to tell Cordelia all about it.
Peggy decided that whilst the work was going on in the hall there was no point in trying to clean. The washing was done, it was a beautiful July day, the children were out and she had a couple of hours to enjoy the sunshine in relative peace. She took off her apron and knotted headscarf, got Cordelia settled into one of the deckchairs and put up the parasol Ron had filched from one of the bombed-out hotels on the front to shade her, and then sat down. The sharp exchange with Mrs Lloyd-Hughes had in fact released some of the tension she’d been feeling since hearing about Jim, and now the sun on her face and bare limbs soothed her.
‘Oh,’ she sighed, closing her eyes. ‘This is bliss.’
‘Enjoy it whilst you can, dear,’ said Cordelia drowsily. ‘Once the children come back you won’t have a minute to yourself.’
Peggy wriggled to a more comfortable position in the deckchair. ‘Hopefully Fran and Sarah will have worn them out by then, so when I take them up to the Red Cross centre they’ll play quietly.’
‘You do too much,’ murmured Cordelia, her sunglasses slipping unheeded down her nose as she nodded off.
Peggy accepted she had very little time to herself with all the dashing about she had to do, but she liked being busy – to feel useful, and part of the great army of women doing their bit to help win this war whilst the men were away.
Her thoughts, as always, turned to Jim. At least he was out of it for a while, and she could only pray that by the time he was well enough to be returned to his regiment, the war would be at an end and he could come home.
The news was becoming more hopeful by the day. The Japanese had been all but routed from Burma. They were still fighting in Siam and throughout the Pacific, but it was clear they couldn’t last much longer, for their huge losses in men, ships and planes had been exacerbated by the continuing monsoon and the lack of food and supplies.
In Europe, Allied troops were making headway south from the liberated northern shores towards Paris, and slowly advancing from the south through Italy; meanwhile, the Russians were advancing through Poland and had just liberated thousands of prisoners from the German concentration camp at Majdanek. The swiftness of this coup had meant the Nazis hadn’t had time to destroy the evidence of what they’d been doing at Majdanek, and this had clearly been so horrifying that Peggy suspected the newsreader had given only a heavily censored report on the previous evening’s broadcast.
The indications that the situation in Europe was beginning to shift in the Allies’ favour had been reinforced by the news that had come through this morning. There had been a failed assassination attempt on Hitler by some of his high-ranking Wehrmacht officers during a conference at a place called Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia. The plot to kill Hitler, negotiate a peace treaty, and thus bring an end to his reign of terror, had involved thousands, which proved to Peggy that Hitler wasn’t as firmly in control as he’d once been – but it was a great shame he hadn’t gone up with that bomb.
‘Well, it’s all right for some, sitting about with nothing to do.’
Peggy’s eyes snapped open as a heavily pregnant Kitty limped towards her with the aid of a walking stick, and she jumped out of her chair and gave her a hug. ‘Sit down,’ she urged. ‘You look all in.’
‘I am a bit,’ Kitty confessed, ‘but a lovely off-duty airman gave me a lift back on his motorbike, which was great fun.’ She regarded the sleeping Cordelia with great affection. ‘Bless her,’ she sighed. ‘Grandma Cordy does love a snooze in the sun, doesn’t she?’
Peggy was not about to be deflected. ‘Back from where?’ she demanded.
‘Cliffe aerodrome.’ She massaged her back as she eyed the teapot. ‘Is that tea still warm? I’m as dry as a bone.’
Peggy threw the dregs from her own cup onto Ron’s vegetable patch and quickly poured the tea. ‘It’ll be horribly stewed,’ she warned, ‘and what on earth were you doing up at Cliffe in the first place? Please don’t tell me you walked all that way in your condition.’
Kitty eyed her over the rim of the cup as she gulped down the tea. ‘Ahh, that’s better.’ She ignored Peggy’s stern glare and brushed back her fair hair from her hot face before running her hand over her swollen stomach. ‘Exercise is good for pregnant women,’ she said defiantly, ‘and I didn’t have to walk back, so there’s no good you looking at me like that.’
Peggy gave a sigh. ‘It’s only because I worry about you, and with the added weight on your prosthesis it can’t be doing your stump any good.’
‘The walking stick helps take some of the weight off,’ said Kitty, pouring another cup of tea. ‘But I do admit I migh
t have overdone it a little today. My stump is throbbing a bit.’
‘Fran will be home soon. I’ll get her to look at it,’ said Peggy, fetching another chair from the shed. ‘But why did you go all the way up there?’
Kitty squirmed in the chair as if trying to find a more comfortable position. ‘Charlotte got notification from the Red Cross that Freddy has been transferred to another Stalag. This is the second time he’s been moved, and knowing my brother, it’s because he’s been making a nuisance of himself. He’s always hated feeling trapped and probably kept trying to escape.’
Peggy thought fondly of the dark-haired, handsome young man who’d always had such a lust for life, women and excitement, and could well understand his frustration at being kept behind barbed wire. ‘Is it the same one Cissy’s Randy has been sent to? Is that why you went to Cliffe?’
Kitty shook her head. ‘He’s further south, but I thought she’d like to know that this shifting of prisoners seems to be random, and probably has nothing to do with nationality. I suspect Randy was proving to be a thorn in the side of the Germans too – he’s just as gung-ho as Freddy.’ She winced and shifted again in the deckchair. ‘The little blighter’s lying on my bladder. I need the loo – again.’
Peggy ran up into the kitchen to freshen the tea whilst Kitty used the outside lav. She popped her head around the door to the hall. ‘Kitty’s here,’ she said to Rita. ‘Her Freddy’s been moved to another Stalag, and would you believe it – she only walked all the way to Cliffe to tell Cissy.’
Rita shook her head. ‘That girl never ceases to amaze me,’ she said in awe. ‘Look, we’re almost done here; tell her I’ll see her in a minute or two.’
Peggy noted that the metal platform and chair was in place, the wheels on the runners, and that Danuta was helping Peter connect the wires on the small engine. ‘I don’t expect she’ll be leaving in a hurry,’ she said. ‘The poor girl’s worn out and needs to rest. Bring your cups with you, I’ve freshened the pot.’
