A Christmas Wish for the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  ‘So, basically,’ she said, starting to speak as quickly as possible, ‘Ange seems adamant that it could never work out with Quentin. In her words, “people like Quentin dinnit marry or even court girls like me.”’

  Dorothy had run out of breath by the time Angie arrived back at the table.

  ‘What yer all gassing about?’ she asked.

  ‘Toby,’ Dorothy said, quick as a flash. ‘And how his jaw’s gonna hit the ground when he sees me in the dress I’ve got for the christening.’

  Angie’s eyes went to the ceiling.

  ‘Yer ever heard of modesty, Dor?’

  As everyone piled out of the canteen, Polly asked Hannah how her aunty Rina and Vera were managing. Hannah laughed. ‘Aunty Rina says Vera is grumbling like mad and loving every minute of it. And Vera says Aunty Rina is grumbling like mad and loving every minute of it. So, all’s well.’

  Polly chuckled. She didn’t ask if Hannah had received any news about her parents as she knew either Bel or Gloria would have told her straight away.

  Feeling someone tap her shoulder, she turned around.

  It was Rosie.

  ‘Don’t forget Charlie’s available for any chores that might need doing – whether for the christening or –’ she looked from Polly to Hannah ‘– Christmas dinner … In fact, for my sake, if you could find something for her to do, it would be much appreciated and would be accepted in lieu of a Christmas present.’

  Polly and Hannah both laughed.

  ‘I’m just going over to tell Ralph and the rest of his crew about the christening.’ Polly looked around and grabbed Martha. ‘Do you mind telling Jimmy and his lot? Tell them I really don’t expect them to come, but I wanted everyone who came to the wedding to know they are welcome.’

  Martha nodded. ‘Will do.’

  As they were hit by a blast of wind and rain, they all went off in their separate directions.

  Polly heard Angie’s voice shout after her.

  ‘If I were yer, I’d not come back to work until the spring!’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Tuesday 21 December

  ‘Darling, come and have a look at our Christmas tree!’

  Helen had just walked through the front door and was tapping the fresh snow off her shoes. Driving on the road this evening had been a challenge. The dropping temperature had turned the roads into an ice rink, and then, just as she’d driven across the Wearmouth Bridge, she’d hit a snow flurry and barely been able to see through the wind-screen. She put her handbag and gas mask down on the hallway floor. Walking into the living room, she was glad to see the fire was going.

  ‘Doesn’t it look wonderful?’ Her mother gestured towards the tree, spilling some of her gin and tonic as she did so.

  ‘It does, Mother. You’ve done well to get one at all – never mind one that’s so gorgeous.’

  ‘Well, the suppliers owed me one after last year’s debacle.’ She eyed her daughter.

  ‘Just shows you,’ Helen said, knowing that her mother would have found out the truth about her missing tree, ‘every cloud has a silver lining.’

  ‘Helen, you are a woman after my own heart. When you want something, you just go out and get it. Sod the consequences,’ Miriam said, a smile playing on her lips. She knew Helen hated it when she reminded her of just how alike they really were.

  Helen bit back a reply.

  ‘You been on the razz tonight, Mum?’ she asked, going over to the drinks cabinet.

  ‘I wish!’ Miriam said, walking over to inspect the tree up close. ‘I’ve been in all evening, organising the decorations for the Christmas tree.’

  Helen’s heart went out to the poor unfortunate souls who had been tasked with decorating the tree under her mother’s command.

  ‘Well, they’ve done an excellent job,’ Helen said, pouring herself a drink. ‘Do you want a top-up?’

  ‘You’ve read my mind,’ Miriam said, turning and walking over to give Helen her glass. ‘Easy on the tonic.’

  ‘You not going to the Grand tonight?’ Helen poured a good slosh of gin and a dribble of tonic and handed it to her mother.

  ‘I’m having a night off.’

  ‘And Amelia? You two also having a night off from each other?’

  ‘Harvey’s back in town,’ Miriam said, taking a sip of her drink. ‘He’s been given a day’s leave so they’re celebrating Christmas early.’

  ‘So, Amelia’s going to be on her own on Christmas Day?’

  ‘Hardly, my dear, she’s having dinner at the Grand with some friends.’

  By friends, Helen interpreted, she guessed her mother meant whichever Admiralty was flavour of the month.

  ‘Which is where I’ll be going as soon as we’ve all done our duty and had our Christmas dinner at your grandfather’s,’ Miriam added, walking over to the fire and giving it a prod.

  Helen felt her heart lift. If her mother was bailing early, then that meant she could too. She was dreading having Christmas at the Havelock residence. She had barely stepped foot in the place since she had found out about her grandfather.

  ‘I know this might sound a strange question, Mother,’ Helen sat down on the sofa, ‘but do you actually like Grandfather?’

  Miriam turned round and scrutinised her daughter. ‘That’s a very odd question to ask.’ She sat in the armchair and took another sip of her drink.

  ‘Well, do you?’ Helen asked again.

  ‘Of course I do, darling, he’s my father, isn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose I was just thinking about when he was younger. When you were younger.’

  Miriam looked at her daughter.

  ‘Darling, life was different for families then. Children were seen and not heard, or better still, not even seen. Which was most definitely the case for Margaret and me. Dear Mama had had enough of us both by the time we were twelve and thirteen and packed us off to boarding school. Then, when we’d served our time there, we were packed off to finishing school.’

  Miriam loved to sound like the victim, but truth be told, she’d never liked being at home, had quite enjoyed boarding school and had absolutely loved the finishing school in Switzerland.

  ‘It must have been hard for you all when Grandmama died.’

  Miriam’s head snapped up to look at her daughter.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that,’ Helen said, surprised by her mother’s reaction. ‘Grandfather losing his wife. You and Aunty Margaret losing your mother – so unexpectedly.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Miriam took a sip of her gin and looked back into the fire.

  ‘The funny thing is,’ Helen continued, ‘I can’t remember for the life of me what Grandmother died of. Someone asked me the other day and I felt bad that I didn’t know.’

  ‘Who asked you?’ Miriam’s attention was back on her daughter.

  ‘Oh, just someone at one of the launches, I forget who,’ Helen lied.

  Miriam took a sip of her drink.

  ‘Mother caught some vile disease when she was abroad on holiday in India – she died out there.’

  ‘How tragic,’ Helen said. She wondered if she had died knowing what her husband had done. To Pearl. And possibly to other young girls.

  ‘Anyway, enough of all that.’ Miriam waved her hand as though shooing away the ghosts of times past. ‘I forgot to tell you I saw Dr Parker in the Grand the other night. He was with his new girlfriend and, by the looks of it, his parents. He’s the spit of his father. I was going to say hello, introduce myself and Amelia, but we ended up being swept off to dinner at the Palatine before I had the chance.’ Which was a lie. On seeing that Dr Parker was with Dr Eris, she couldn’t get out of the place quickly enough. Luckily, the woman hadn’t spotted her.

  ‘Yes, he said he saw you too,’ Helen said. There it was again. That feeling of physical pain on imagining John and Claire having a cosy ‘meeting the family’ meal. Bet you John’s parents fell for her hook, line and sinker.

  ‘So, where did you go galivanting
off to this evening? You’re not usually in this late,’ Miriam said.

  ‘Mother, you wouldn’t know what time I’m usually in as you’re usually out.’

  Miriam chuckled. ‘Well, you’ve got to make the most of life while you’re here, haven’t you?’

  Helen cringed. She had thought the same thing this evening when she’d agreed to go to dinner with Matthew.

  ‘I’ve just been out with a few friends,’ Helen said.

  There was no way she’d give her mother the satisfaction of knowing the truth. She’d be on the phone straight away to Mr Royce senior, organising their own ‘meeting of the parents’.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Hudson Road School, Hendon, Sunderland

  Thursday 23 December

  ‘There’s no room in the inn,’ Lucille said, a convincing frown on her forehead as she glowered at Mary and Joseph.

  Bel blinked back the tears as she proudly watched her little girl, standing arms akimbo, a cushion stuffed under a borrowed woollen jumper, acting her little heart out. The temperatures might be below zero outside, but inside the school hall it was warm and stuffy. Lucille’s cheeks were flushed red, which complemented her innkeeper’s look.

  Lucille had forsaken her role of angel as the real innkeeper had become ill at the last moment and Lucille had been the only one not to cry when the teacher told her flock of little cherubs that one of them was going to have to ditch their wings to become the baddy who tells Jesus’s mam and dad they can’t have a room.

  Bel and Joe were sitting in the second row from the front. Joe had a firm hold of his wife’s hand. Giving her a quick sideways glance, he could see the tears starting to glisten in her eyes. He knew those tears were not just because this was her daughter’s first nativity, but because it might be the last ‘first nativity’ she got to go to.

  Joe looked behind him to see that his ma was not doing such a good job of holding back her own tears and was unashamedly letting them run down her face. Pearl was next to her and was decidedly dry-eyed. He wondered if this was her first nativity; he couldn’t imagine Pearl ever being present at Bel’s. Polly was standing at the back of the hall with baby Artie, who had started to get tetchy at the beginning of the performance when the shepherds, tea towels on their heads, had shuffled onto the stage.

  An hour later, everyone was making their way out of the school building and buttoning up their coats as they faced the icy-cold weather outside. Joe said his goodbyes and went straight off to be with his unit, while Pearl hurried off to the Tatham.

  Within half an hour of stepping over the threshold to the Elliot household, Polly had put Artie down and then ended up falling fast asleep herself.

  Not long afterwards, seeing how shattered Lucille was after her stage debut, Bel had had little resistance in getting her daughter to bed.

  ‘Mammy …’ Lucille could barely keep her eyes open ‘… was there really no room in the inn, or was the man just being mean?’

  Bel smiled down at her daughter. ‘I don’t know, sweetheart. Why don’t we have a chat about it tomorrow?’ She leant down and kissed the top of her head. ‘Sweet dreams.’

  By the time Bel was drawing the door ajar, Lucille was asleep.

  Walking into the kitchen, Bel was glad that there was just Agnes sitting at the table, a fresh pot of tea in the middle of it.

  ‘Do you think the innkeeper really didn’t have any room?’ Bel asked. ‘Or he just didn’t want the hassle of having a pregnant woman under his roof?’

  Agnes laughed and poured their tea.

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t surprise me. Especially as they clearly had no money and weren’t married into the bargain.’

  Now it was Bel’s turn to laugh.

  ‘Things haven’t changed much, have they?’

  Bel eased herself into the chair. She was tired; she had been on her feet all day. She knew what Mary and Joseph had felt like, although she would have given anything to have been in Mary’s condition.

  ‘I kept thinking all during the nativity about how you took me in,’ Bel said, looking at Agnes. ‘I had nowhere to go, was locked out, Ma was God knows where, with God knows who – but you didn’t turn me away, did you?’

  ‘I think it would have taken a hard-hearted woman to have done that,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Of which there are many,’ Bel countered.

  They were quiet for a moment while they drank their tea.

  ‘But it must have been hard work,’ Bel said, putting her teacup on its saucer and sitting back in her chair. ‘You had me to look after when you already had Pol and the twins to bring up – and let’s face it, the twins were a handful.’

  Agnes smiled, thinking of her sons as young boys.

  ‘I didn’t really think about what it must have been like for you until I became a mother myself – and I’ve just got the one …’ Bel’s voice wavered.

  Agnes reached over and took hold of her hand.

  Bel swallowed back the tears. ‘I’m all right, really, Agnes … I wish I could just be happy with my lot.’

  ‘It’s a difficult time of year,’ Agnes said. ‘Baby Jesus this and Baby Jesus that …’

  Bel laughed sadly. ‘I know. And all LuLu wants for Christmas is a baby brother or sister. I thought little Artie might keep her happy, but it’s as though now he’s arrived on the scene, it’s spurred her on in her determination to have a brother or sister all to herself.’

  There were tears in both women’s eyes.

  ‘Life can be a funny one,’ Agnes said. ‘Takes us places we hadn’t expected or planned. But remember,’ she squeezed Bel’s hand before letting it go and getting up from the table, ‘the unexpected doesn’t have to be bad. It can bring surprises. Good surprises.’

  Bel watched as Agnes bent over to get the single malt from the cupboard and poured a drop into both their cups.

  Bel took a sip and swallowed, grimacing a little as she felt the burn of the whisky.

  ‘What I was going to say, before I nearly started to blubber,’ Bel said with a slight laugh, ‘is that you took me in when you already had your hands full. You were on your own, widowed, no family, no money, three children, and then I tipped up like Little Orphan Annie and you waved me in, clothed me, fed, looked after me—’ Bel swallowed more tears that were threatening to silence her.

  ‘But most of all,’ she said, ‘you loved me.’

  ‘Of course I did,’ Agnes said, looking at Bel. ‘How could I not? You were a totally lovable child. Who grew into a totally lovable young woman.’

  Bel took another sip. Her mind was back in the past, remembering how Agnes had divided the few clothes Polly had to accommodate the little stray she had taken in. As Polly and Bel had only one dress each, it meant that every night when they’d got ready for bed, Agnes would wash both dresses, wring them out and hang them by the range so that they were dry the next day.

  ‘I used to wonder why you were always stooped over the poss tub.’ Bel smiled at Agnes. ‘It was only when one of the girls in the class – that awful girl … can’t remember her name – but it was only when she started taking the mick because Polly and I wore the same clothes every day that I realised why.’

  ‘I think that was Polly’s fault.’ Agnes’s smile grew wider as she recalled her daughter as a child. ‘She was such a tomboy. Forever getting into scrapes and ending up looking like she’d spent the day down the pit. You, on the other hand, would always keep yer dress in pristine condition. Hardly a mark on it. I only washed yer dress as well in case yer thought I was giving Pol preferential treatment.’

  Bel looked at Agnes. Tears started to prick her eyes. ‘I’m so glad you did, though. I loved waking up and climbing into my clean clothes, still warm from the range. I can still smell the washing powder you used.’ She looked at Agnes. ‘You had that big box of Lux you kept right at the back of the scullery in the corner.’

  Agnes whooped with laughter. ‘That was from my friend Val. She worked at the Luxdon launderette down Smyr
na Place. She used to – how should I say it – acquire the odd box every now and again. She’d take half out for herself and give me the other half still in the box.’

  ‘Well, if I ever meet this Val, I’ll have to thank her. The smell was heavenly. I used to feel like a princess every day I walked to school with Pol. Smelling so nice and feeling so clean.’

  Agnes took a slurp of her tea and chuckled.

  ‘Unlike Pol, who would have gone without a wash for weeks on end if I’d have let her.’

  ‘I know,’ Bel laughed. ‘It was like you were subjecting her to some kind of torture.’

  The women smiled and sipped their tea, both enjoying their own memories.

  ‘You know, Agnes,’ Bel said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever really thanked you for taking me in. God knows what would have happened to me if you hadn’t.’

  Agnes dismissed Bel’s words with a shake of the head.

  ‘There’s a part of me that still feels guilty,’ Bel admitted. ‘For putting on you so. Not that I think I would have given you much of a choice if you had shut the door on me. I think if you had chucked me out, I’d have just sat on your doorstep and begged to be let back in.’

  Agnes sat back on her chair and looked at Bel.

  ‘There’s something I’ve never told yer. Something I should probably have told yer before now,’ she said, putting her cup and saucer down on the table. ‘That day Pol brought yer back here, it wasn’t a chore. I didn’t have to wrestle with my conscience before reluctantly taking yer in. Far from it. I was glad.’

  Bel looked surprised.

  ‘You see,’ Agnes said, ‘if Harry had made it back from the war, I’d definitely have had more children. I know I would have certainly kept going until I’d had another girl.

  ‘I’d been thinking that day,’ Agnes continued. ‘Had been thinking for a good while, to be honest, that Polly needed another sibling. Yer see, Pol absolutely doted on her two brothers, which mightn’t have been too much of a problem – if they hadn’t have been twins. Teddy and Joe loved Pol to bits, don’t get me wrong, but they were each other’s world. They were more like one than two separate beings.’