by Nancy Revell
‘What was that then?’
‘Get my aunty Marg down to help with the baby. She was always so lovely with me whenever she came to visit when I was a child. It’s actually amazing that she and my mother come from the same stock.’
Gloria’s chuckles were obscured by the scream of the kettle.
‘You just wait until you have yer little ’un,’ Gloria said, pouring boiling water into the teapot. ‘You’ll fall madly in love ’n won’t want anyone else even near her, never mind looking after her, or want to leave her to go back to work.’
Helen smiled at Hope as the toddler managed to feed herself another spoonful. It didn’t escape Helen’s notice that Gloria often referred to her baby-to-be as a girl. It was something she felt too.
‘I am going back to work,’ Helen said adamantly. ‘There’s no two ways about it. Anyway, you’re a right one to talk – you went back to work within weeks of having Hope.’
‘Different circumstances,’ Gloria said, bringing the tea tray in and putting it down on the coffee table.
Helen looked at Gloria as she poured out the tea; her hands had been scrubbed clean, but the rest of her was filthy.
‘You look like you’ve been working down the mines,’ Helen chuckled, watching Gloria pour milk into both cups. ‘I’m so glad I work in the office.’
‘Bel said the same thing when she saw the state of us today,’ Gloria said, adding sugar to both cups and giving them a quick stir.
‘She seems to be fitting in nicely in the office,’ Helen said. ‘Marie-Anne and her seem to have become best buddies. I’m still surprised that she wanted to work at Thompson’s, though. I would have thought someone like Bel would have preferred a nice, clean – and quiet – office, somewhere in town.’
Gloria took a big slurp of her tea. ‘I reckon it was just good timing – and because of Polly.’
‘What? Do you think she was worried about Polly? Because of Tommy?’ Helen asked gingerly.
‘It would make sense,’ Gloria said.
‘And how is Polly?’ Helen asked hesitantly. ‘Has she heard anything more about Tommy?’
‘Nothing.’ Gloria shook her head sadly. ‘The head hon-cho of his unit had all his belongings sent back the other day. She was in a right state.’
‘So, they really think he’s dead?’
Gloria could hear the slight tremble in Helen’s voice. She put down her cup.
‘I forget that you two were close as well,’ she said. Helen nodded. Tears had started to form in her eyes.
‘I know everyone thinks I’m some heartless cow who just wanted to pinch Tommy off Polly on a whim, but I really did love Tommy. We practically grew up together. Dad will tell you. He and Arthur were best buddies and wherever Arthur went, Tommy went too.’ Helen let out a sad laugh. ‘Arthur used to say, “Here comes me ’n my shadow.” God, Tommy adored the old man. No wonder he became a diver.’ Gloria listened quietly. She had never really talked to Helen about Tommy before.
‘We may have come from opposite sides of the fence, but because Dad and Arthur were so close, Tommy and I ended up spending a lot of time together as children. I always felt like we were meant to be together.’
Helen looked at Hope, whose attention seemed to be divided between her big sister, her mammy and the novelty of trying to feed herself.
‘Then when he started work for the Wear Commissioner and I started working at Thompson’s, it seemed so obvious. I mean, we both had this love of the shipyards – and we knew each other really well. We were friends.’
Helen paused.
‘Mum knew, of course, that I had more than a soft spot for Tommy. She was forever saying I should look for someone who was of the same social standing as myself. And I tried. I dated a few boys from well-off families, but they never matched up … I always believed it would be just a matter of time before Tommy realised that we were made for each other.’
Helen sighed.
‘And then this bloody war started – and Polly came along.’
Helen paused again, deep in thought.
‘I was so insanely jealous of Polly when I could see that Tommy was falling for her.’
Helen looked at Gloria, her eyes swimming with a deep sadness.
‘And now neither of us has got him.’
Helen brushed away a tear that had escaped and was starting to run down her cheek.
‘God, listen to me getting all maudlin!’ Helen sat up straight and directed her attention back to Hope, helping her scrape up the last of her food and shovel it gently into her little button mouth.
As Helen was leaving, Gloria handed her a letter from her father.
‘Does Miriam know yer back in touch with yer dad?’ It was something Gloria had been curious about.
‘Well, she’s never asked, and I’ve never said anything. I don’t think she dares mention it after I told her I knew that she was keeping his letters from me. Besides, I think that’s the least of her worries at the moment. I don’t know if she’s even all that bothered any more. Every time I see her – or rather bump into her when she’s going out and I’m coming in – she just demands to know what I’m going to tell everyone.’ Helen picked up her handbag and gas mask. ‘I swear I can see smoke coming out her ears when I tell her that it’s quite simple: I’m not going to tell anyone anything. It’s my business and no one else’s.’
Helen gave Hope a quick kiss on her cheek.
‘See you, gorgeous. Next week if not before.’ She bent down to look at eyes that never failed to amaze her. They were becoming more like her own with each visit.
‘Well, I’ll keep giving you the same signal at the end of the shift,’ Gloria said as Helen came to give her a quick hug before heading out the door. ‘If I know for sure the coast is going to be clear, the headscarf comes off. If not – or I’m not sure – it stays on.’
Helen laughed. ‘Honestly, it’s like the Secret Service!’ ‘Oh, and Helen,’ Gloria said, ‘thanks again for my lovely new headscarf. It pains me to wear something so nice for work.’
‘Well, it does the trick. Stands out from all that grey – and all those flat caps.’ Helen hurried up the stone stairs, pausing at the top to make sure the coast was clear.
‘See you soon, Gloria,’ Helen shouted down to the flat. ‘You take care of yourself now!’ Gloria called after her, but she was already gone.
When Helen left, Gloria took Hope out of her high chair and got her settled in her cot in the back bedroom. Looking down at her little girl, she was so incredibly relieved that Helen had decided to go ahead with her pregnancy, and moreover, that she seemed so genuinely happy about it. She had a lot of gumption, that girl. She had to hand it to her.
Gloria walked back down the short hallway and back into the living room. As she cleared up the tea tray, she smiled to herself, thinking of Jack’s reaction when they were speaking on the phone the other day and he’d told her that Helen was travelling up to see him in a few weeks. He’d sounded like he had won the pools. Mind you, he probably wouldn’t sound so jubilant when Helen told him she was expecting, but he’d get used to it. He’d have to.
She just wished Helen would let her tell him beforehand, give him time to digest the news, but that was Helen – she could be stubborn as hell when she wanted to be.
Perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing, though.
It would probably serve her well in the months to come.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Monday 7 September
RYHOPE AIR RAID. THREE KILLED. FORTY INJURED.
The headline screamed out at Helen as soon as Marie-Anne placed the local paper on her desk along with her cup of tea, as she did every morning at nine o’clock.
By the time Marie-Anne was walking out the door, Helen had snatched up the phone and demanded the operator put her through to the Ryhope Emergency Hospital.
Helen listened to the phone ringing, her other hand drumming the top of her desk.
Finally, it was answered.
‘
Hello, this is the Ryhope Emergency Hospital, how can I help you?’
‘Hello, this is Miss Crawford calling. Can you put me through to Dr Parker, please?’ Helen tried to keep calm.
‘Yes, miss. Please hold the line.’
The receptionist sounded young and a little frazzled. Helen waited, listening to dead air.
‘I’m sorry, miss, I don’t seem to be able to locate him.
Would you like to leave a message?’
‘No, I don’t want to leave a message!’ Helen snapped. ‘I want to speak to Dr Parker!’
‘I’m awfully sorry, miss,’ the girl sounded very young and even more anxious, ‘but it’s all rather frantic here at the moment.’ She paused. ‘You know … after the bombing last night.’
‘Which is exactly why I need to speak to Dr Parker!’ Helen had to work hard to keep her temper under control. ‘Write my name down,’ she commanded. ‘Then go and find Dr Parker and tell him I’ve called. Then I want you to ring me back and tell me that you have seen him. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ the voice was submissive now. ‘I’m to find Dr Parker and ring you back.’
The girl was about to hang up.
‘My number!’ Helen bellowed down the phone.
‘Yes, of course, sorry.’
Helen could hear the girl scrabble around for a piece of paper and a pen.
‘Sorry,’ she apologised again, ‘I’m just a stand-in today … temporary.’
Helen took a breath and gave the girl her number.
‘As quick as you can,’ she said.
The line went dead. There was nothing to do but wait.
It was times like this Helen wished she still smoked. She looked down again at the Sunderland Echo.
Bloody Jerry.
Just one bloody bomb and it would have to land in Ryhope village. And in Smith Street, of all places. Where John had his bloody bedsit!
She read the rest of the article.
Four more bombs had landed in fields in Grangetown, some phosphorus bombs in Fulwell Quarry, and an unexploded AA shell had landed in Alexandra Road.
Helen took a sip of her tea and nearly dropped the cup when the phone rang.
‘Hello!’ she barked down the phone.
‘Helen, it’s me, John. Are you all right?’
‘Oh, thank God for that!’ Helen almost burst out crying with relief. ‘For one horrible moment there …’ Helen’s voice trailed off.
‘You thought the worst.’
‘Yes,’ Helen said. ‘I just read that Ryhope had been hit …
and then when I saw it was Smith Street …’
‘I was on night shift here, at the hospital,’ Dr Parker explained. ‘Mind you, it’s been pandemonium since. As you can imagine.’
‘Of course.’ Helen started to breathe normally. ‘All the casualties would have been brought to you …’
‘You shouldn’t be worrying your head about me, you know.’ Dr Parker dropped his voice. ‘You’ve got enough concerns of your own.’
‘I’ll jolly well worry my head about you if I want to!’ Helen’s tone was a mixture of anger and relief.
Dr Parker was quiet for a moment.
‘Are you all right, Helen? You sound … I don’t know …
not yourself.’
There was silence down the phone and for a second Dr Parker thought Helen might be crying.
‘Helen?’
‘I’m fine. I’m fine. Honestly,’ Helen tried to reassure him. ‘I’ve just felt so ridiculously emotional this past week. One minute I feel like biting someone’s head off, the next I feel like crying my eyes out. Then when I read the news and saw it was your street … well, I just panicked. I needed to know you were all right. I don’t think I could bear it if anyone else I know didn’t make it through this damned war.’
Dr Parker didn’t say anything, but he knew Helen was more cut up than she let on about Tommy Watts. She’d told him over dinner the other night that his belongings had been sent back. Not a very hopeful sign.
‘Well, nothing’s going to happen to me, rest assured.’ There was another silence down the phone.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, Helen?’ he asked.
He heard her blowing out air. She sounded as though she was in pain.
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ she said.
‘Well, you don’t sound fine,’ Dr Parker said, concerned. ‘I’ve just got the most terrible bad back,’ she said. ‘Bloody annoying. Another one of the joys of pregnancy,’ she tried to joke, but Dr Parker could hear she was still in severe discomfort.
‘Mmm. I wonder whether it might be worth going for a check-up? Wouldn’t do any harm,’ he suggested.
‘Oh, I’m fine. Probably sitting at this desk for too long every day,’ Helen said. ‘Anyway, I didn’t call to talk about me. As long as you’re all right, and you’ve still got a home to go back to – when you do go home, that is!’ Helen could hear noise in the background. ‘Go on, it sounds busy there. I’ll see you later on in the week. My treat this time.’
‘Well, we’ll see about that. See you then.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Wednesday 9 September
Arthur was sitting at the kitchen table. He was bent over, tying up his shoe laces, having exchanged his tartan slippers for outdoor footwear. It had just gone ten o’clock and he was getting himself ready to head out to the Town Moor to spend a few hours at the allotment.
Hearing Agnes bustle in from the hallway, he looked up to see her face barely visible behind the mound of bed sheets in her arms. Once a week Agnes would spend the entire day cleaning the house – and everything in it – from top to bottom. Just a glimpse of Agnes’s face, however, told Arthur that something was up. She looked uptight. Angry.
‘You all right, pet?’ Arthur asked as she walked through to the scullery and dumped the sheets on the floor next to the steel dolly tub.
Agnes put her hands on her hips and stared down at the two piles of dirty laundry – one whites, the other coloureds. She didn’t look at Arthur, nor did she answer his question. Instead she just stood there. Staring at the dirty laundry.
‘Come ’n have a cuppa,’ Arthur beckoned. He lifted the tea cosy off and felt the teapot. It was still hot.
Agnes did as Arthur bid. Abandoning the washing, she walked out of the scullery and sat down at the kitchen table. Arthur watched as she performed her usual ritual of pouring tea and a splash of milk into her cup, then tipping a measure into the saucer. Arthur took a sip of his own tea and waited. Agnes would speak when she was ready. This was the quietest time of day in the Elliot household. Polly and Bel were at work, Joe was out with the Home Guard, Pearl was round at the Tatham helping Bill with a delivery from Vaux, and Lucille and Hope were next door at Beryl’s, which was where Agnes would have been had it not been her washday.
‘I’m worried,’ Agnes finally said.
‘About Polly?’ Arthur asked.
Agnes nodded slowly, then raised the saucer to her lips and sipped her tea.
‘Something’s happened?’ Arthur prodded.
‘I’ve just found these.’ Agnes shoved her hand into the pocket of her pinny and pulled out a load of letters. ‘And that’s not all of them,’ she added, ‘there’s a load more.’
Arthur looked at the carefully folded sheets of white paper.
‘Letters?’
Agnes nodded solemnly and pushed them across the oil tablecloth towards Arthur.
He looked at Agnes, who nodded her head, giving him the go-ahead to read.
Arthur’s gnarly hands carefully picked up the letter that was on top of the pile and opened it. He skim-read the first few paragraphs, before putting it down and picking up the next and doing the same. He unfolded each piece of paper, one after the other. He didn’t need to read each and every one. The words might have been different, but the meaning was the same.
When Arthur looked up at Agnes his pale blue eyes were wet.
‘Oh, Agnes.’ He sat
back on his chair, his hands resting on the table, his body deflated and despairing.
‘There’s at least another dozen, just like those. All in a pile under her bed,’ Agnes said.
‘Let me guess,’ Arthur ventured, ‘she started writing them not long after she got the letter from Tommy’s unit commander?’
Agnes nodded gravely.
‘Looks like she’s been writing one every few days. Sometimes every day … And stopped when Tommy’s stuff got sent back. She’s not written another letter since then.’
Agnes picked up her saucer with both hands and brought it to her mouth.
‘I don’t know what worries me more …’ she said before taking a sip and putting the saucer back down. ‘The fact she’s been scribbling away every night writing letters that she’s never going to send—’
‘Or not writing any ’cos she’s lost all hope our Tom’s alive,’ Arthur finished off.
‘What should a mother wish for? That she has hope, even if it might well be a false hope, or …’ Agnes stopped, not wanting to bring even more heartache to the old man sitting opposite her.
‘Or she faces the reality that Tom’s dead,’ Arthur said, his voice heavy with the most terrible despondency.
‘Oh, Arthur, I’m so sorry. I know this is the last thing you need to hear. Me mithering on like this.’
Arthur shook his head. ‘Polly’s the one that we need to be thinking about. The lass has got her whole life ahead of her. I know if she was my bairn, I’d be worried sick about her.’ Arthur’s mind spun back in an instant to the First War, when his own daughter had got the news that the man she loved had been killed, and the soul-destroying grief that had convinced her to join him.
‘I am … Worried sick,’ Agnes said. ‘I always knew Bel would be all right when our Teddy died because she was so angry … So angry … It sounds daft, but I was actually glad. Knew she just had to get it all out and she’d be all right – eventually. And she was. But Polly … she’s keeping it all inside. Going on as always. Going to work, eating her supper, going to bed, but it’s all festering inside of her. And I don’t like it. Don’t like it one bit.’
