Orphans of War

by Leah Fleming

‘I know, I know, but it’s getting late. Take me home. You’ll send them in the post. Promise?’

  ‘Of course, now I know where you are. It was naughty of you to run out on me like that. The posh bitch at the Brooklyn was very snooty. Good job I got round the old washerwoman and she spilled the beans. I’ll bring them in person next time.’

  ‘Next time?’ Gloria gasped. ‘There can’t be a next time, Ken. I don’t want to carry on like this. It’s not fair on either of us. I’m starting a new life here.’

  ‘I know you are, Gloria, you keep telling me. But there’s lots of negatives, aren’t there…or have you forgotten those close-ups we did with the mirror and Rita Mason?’

  ‘Oh, no! Ken, please God…I was drunk.’

  ‘Exactly, now the penny’s dropping at long last. Every one of them will have to be earned out. You owe me that for all my investment in you.’

  ‘But that’s blackmail! Please, just give them to me. I’ll pay you proper money for them. I’ll find it somehow.’

  ‘No!’ he replied, and his voice was full of menace. ‘I look on this as a repayment for lost future income. I am claiming back my investment outlay. Once a week should do it. We’ll have a nice night out and lots of fun. You should know by now, Gloria, everything has its price.’

  In the darkness, smelling the stale fumes of the car, feeling sick, Gloria fell silent, defeated and dirty. She was no better than all those tarts in Elijah Street–in fact worse, for she had brought all this on herself with her jealousy of Maddy’s career, her stupid trust in Ken’s promises. No one forced her to climb those stairs into his studio but her own vanity. Now she must pay and it was only what she deserved after all.

  Hard as they struggled in the garden at Brooklyn Hall, it was getting so overgrown and battered with the wind and rain that Plum knew she was losing the will to keep it under control. She was staking up a line of herbaceous plants that were flopping badly in the border that Pleasance had refused to yield up to vegetables during the war.

  None of her new permanent lodgers had shown any inclination to give a hand or walk her dogs. She’d had to get the Boy Scouts to do some bob-a-job work, but they didn’t know a weed from a prize specimen so she’d hovered over them, pointing where to pull and where to stake. In fact, they’d got her so worked up and weary she decided to go to rake over the gravel before she blew a gasket and scared them off.

  Gardening was such a chore when you had no one to share it with. Her new man, Mr Lock, who sorted out the vegetable allotment, would not deign to look at the ‘fancy stuff’, as he called it. So if she wanted cut flowers and sweet-smelling perennials, she’d just have to do it herself.

  Plum loved her poppies, phlox, foxgloves, peonies, lupins, hebes and roses. They filled the house with scent and colour–even if there was only her to appreciate them since Gloria had left her in the lurch months ago.

  She’d not replaced her with live-in help, just two dailies from Sowerthwaite who were efficient in their own way but had no initiative.

  Gloria’s letters were thinning out now, after that first bombshell about her being in Avis Blunt’s employ! Poor Gloria was not enjoying her new position. There was no mention of Gregory either. In fact, everything sounded very subdued, which was not like her at all.

  Plum had written to tell Gloria about Maddy’s success in London, being taken on as a house model in a couture establishment, because she sensed Gloria and Maddy were not communicating much. With Greg now out of the scene, Maddy was out of touch with them all.

  The best outing of the summer was a reunion with Totty Foxup. They met halfway for lunch in a hotel near Ripley, recognising each other immediately. They’d laughed and swopped stories, and for an afternoon Plum had felt like a skittish young gal again, not a rather weary middle-aged has-been, deserted by her husband. Totty was full of Bella’s wedding and her hopes for grandchildren. Plum tried not to feel envious, and boasted about Maddy’s success in London to keep her end up. On the drive home she thought how different their worlds were now. She going back to an empty house whilst Totty went home to Hugh and her family.

  She was busy wondering how to engineer them all to meet up together when she bent over and missed one of the canes that was staking up the delphiniums in the border. It caught her right in the eyeball with a blinding pain. She’d not blinked in time.

  ‘Damn and blast!’ she cried out as the eye closed shut and she started to cry tears, blinded for a few seconds. She staggered back to the house to the medicine cabinet for the borax crystals and tried to blink it open properly, but it stayed shut. Then she remembered that there might be one of Maddy’s old eye patches lurking in the back of a drawer. Rooting with her good eye, Plum searched until she found it in the all-sorts drawer of the big dresser in the kitchen amidst the marbles, recorders, broken china waiting to be repaired, drawing pins, paper and all the old paraphernalia of the evacuee days.

  Fixing the patch over the eye, she stared down sadly at the bits and pieces of those busy days and wept more tears again. Don’t be a sentimental fool! she sniffed, just get up and keep going. It’s only a scratch.

  Over the next few days, the stinging pain didn’t let up and she thought she might have to call out Dr Armitage, the new doctor from Manchester who’d come to relieve Dr Gunn now that they had their free National Health Service. Then she thought the better of it. She was sure the poor young man was inundated with all the town’s folk queuing for long-overdue treatments, not just tonics, but glasses and new teeth, or wanting their tonsils out.

  It was when the other eye started to go blurry that Plum thought it might be sensible to see why nothing was healing. She walked down into town in the fresh air, feeling like Long John Silver in her black eye patch. Poor Maddy! Now she knew how it must have felt for her all those years ago.

  Plum sat in the waiting room feeling like a fraud, until it was her turn to see the young man. Only he wasn’t a newly qualified doctor. He was an ex-army medic about her own age, who looked at her patch and the blisteringly painful left eye with concern, peering into it with his light.

  ‘What on earth made you think this would heal itself woman?’ he snapped.

  ‘It’s only a scratch but it’s so uncomfortable,’ she sniffed.

  ‘You’ve scratched your cornea and it’s become infected and the infection has gone into your other eye, silly woman,’ he said, in a very military tone.

  ‘Don’t you call me a silly woman!’ she cried. ‘I was only trying to sort out the garden.’ Then she burst into tears.

  ‘Let me take your temperature…rising, no doubt! It’s the eye hospital for you now.’ This man was used to giving orders.

  ‘But that’s in Bradford and I haven’t got time. There’s my lodgers to see to,’ Plum protested, now feeling utterly wretched.

  ‘Mrs Belfield, I’m sure your life is very important but if we want to save your eyesight you’d better get down there and get some treatment pretty damn quick, do I make myself plain?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ she sniffled, feeling foolish. ‘It’s just I run a guesthouse alone. There’s the horses and the dogs to see to.’ What was she going to do if she couldn’t see?

  ‘Then close it for the duration. You look run down to me. This is no light matter.’ His voice softened, seeing her distress. ‘You know accidents sometimes happen when we are run down. My wife once dropped a garden fork on her toes in the herbaceous border. She was too busy to see to it and it turned nasty.’

  ‘She’s fine now, though?’ Plum asked

  ‘Sadly, she died three years ago, hence my change of venue,’ he replied, not looking at her.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t mean…’ Poor man, she thought. It must be harder for a man on his own, but he sounded a devil to live with.

  ‘Your husband works away then?’ It was his turn to ask the questions.

  ‘We live apart,’ she said calmly. ‘I have a niece in London, but I can’t bother her.’

  ‘Why ever not? That’s what
families are for, to help each other out in a crisis.’

  ‘I suppose I could ring her.’

  ‘You do that–your eyesight is precious. You’ve wasted enough time already. I shall check to see you’ve gone.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Armitage,’ Plum said, making for the door.

  ‘Now, you get going, or I’ll have to drive you there myself!’ He laughed and she noticed what a wrinkled face and warm grey eyes he had. This man’d do well in Sowerthwaite. He was no fool and he’d soon give any time-wasters short shrift.

  Now she’d have to get Bert Batty to drive her to hospital, all because she bent over a cane without paying attention. It could have poked her eye out but she’d not bother Maddy. Bringing her back from London was quite unnecessary, much as she’d love to hear all about her new life. She’d soldier on somehow.

  The first Maddy knew of the accident was weeks later when she rang on spec and Grace Battersby answered the phone.

  ‘Mrs Belfield’s out at the eye hospital for a checkup,’ said Grace. ‘She gave herself a right sidewinder with a garden cane, proper nasty turn, but they gave her some new-fangled drugs to clear the infection. We’ve been telling her to take it easy but you know Mrs Plum. We can’t keep up with her. The doctor’s called in twice and found her out…he told her off good and proper. Nice chap is Dr Armitage–a widower, by all accounts. He’s joined the cricket team and now she’s doing teas, as if she hasn’t enough to do. That’s where she’ll be once she gets home,’ Grace chuckled.

  ‘Should I come?’ Maddy said, feeling guilty to have neglected her aunt over the past months.

  ‘If she’d wanted to bother you, she’d have written. But she does worry me, so independent and allus on the go, can’t sit still for a minute. He’s given her a tonic to settle her down but she never takes it, says it makes her sleepy…I ask you! Happen you can ring later. It’s grand having a proper phone line in, at last. I can order from the grocer and butcher and saves my legs. How’s yer job doing, love?’

  Maddy filled her in with all the glamorous details she could think of, the shows and the parties she’d been to, but the truth was she was homesick, pining for the hills and the grey stone walls, the smell of the horses, freshly mown hay and for the soft flat vowels of the North Country.

  Sometimes this longing would catch her unawares. Sometimes when she was sitting on a bus looking down at the busy crowds in Oxford Street, she thought of the haunting old folk song ‘The Oak, the Ash and the Bonnie Ivy Tree’. She found she was humming it wistfully all the time.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t love her London life. She now shared a little mews flat off Marble Arch with Charmaine Blake and her sister, Penny. It was a bit of a squash and took every penny she had, but it was fun. There were always gangs of their friends sitting on the floor listening to jazz records, students and old school friends. Sometimes they all took off down to the coast when they had free weekends, walking on the South Downs. The countryside was lush and balmy compared to Yorkshire, and made her yearn for the bleak grey hills of home.

  When she glanced across the River Thames she could see scaffolding on concrete and smoking power stations. They were erecting the buildings for the new Festival of Britain site on the south bank of the River, which would open in the spring. It was true that London was a great place for the young, and it was to be the hub of all the exhibitions. The couture houses were busy vying with each other to make fashion for the festival and get their designs showcased in displays. It was all going to be so exciting.

  After all the drab years and misery of war, here was something for the country to celebrate at last. Why did she feel so flat? Perhaps she had stayed away from the Brooklyn too long–maybe she would give Plum a surprise and turn up unannounced, make up for all her absences. But the very thought of returning there made her feel sick. Gloria’s chilling words still rang in her ears. Was that terrible secret going to haunt her for the rest of her life? Would she ever find peace within? At the thought of anyone finding out her heart would pound with panic, making her feel shaky.

  She rushed down the stairs into the street, took some deep breaths as she began to walk towards Regent’s Park, towards green lawns and trees. The open air calmed her nerves. How could she go back and face her demons or hide her true feelings from Aunt Plum? Better just to stay put and invite her down for a visit. They could do some shows, a concert, a gallery and Maddy could show her aunt that she was happy down here in the city. Perhaps she could come for a holiday when the Festival of Britain was on, but that was ages yet. It would be good to spend time together like that.

  Standing rigid for a fitting, daydreaming, she never thought about the old days, but nighttime was a different story. How she must have hurt Greg. There was a crowd of Charmaines’s friends who took her out to parties and to dinner, but no one took her eye amongst the boys. She was never alone or bored, and Mr Henry was a demanding employer who expected total loyalty. She knew it could all end in a moment if he no longer found her an inspiration or needed her as one of his main clothes horses. If she put on an inch of fat he’d notice and sulk. Sometimes she starved for days, and her smoking was such a waste of money and made her cough, but it kept her from eating. She lived on coffee and toast. If Maddy went back to Yorkshire, what with Grace’s home baking, she’d not fit into anything on her return.

  No, far better to stay put and invite Plum down in due course. She could have her room and Maddy would kip down on the sofa. Perhaps Plum would prefer a smart hotel. Charmaine wouldn’t mind. She had a fiancé in the army. They had a place in the country and went there whenever he was on leave. It was a perfect arrangement. Maddy felt bad about neglecting Plum and resolved to ring her later and check everything was OK.

  This self-imposed exile was a pain, and all because of something stupid done years ago. No, it wasn’t stupid. It was wicked, according to Gloria. If only she could remember what happened, but try as she might, nothing came. There were snippets in dreams, but nothing else. It was like a great glass barrier between her and the rest of her life, a barrier she wanted to smash but didn’t have the strength or courage to take a hatchet to it.

  At least in London there were no reminders of her past to disturb her everyday life. Here, she was just La Madeleine, draped in silk and satin and jewels and wonderful creations like a prize racehorse in a trainer’s stable, exercised and pampered and paraded in a paddock. But suddenly she imagined herself on Monty, hair flying in the wind tearing over the Dales at a gallop without a care in the world, and she wanted to weep.

  Something was missing, something so important. If only she knew what it was, but it was all tied up with Sowerthwaite and the Brooklyn and her childhood. As she thought about her best friends tears rose up in her eyes; that faraway look of sorrow everyone liked to see.

  ‘Ah, there it is again,’ said Mr Henry. ‘You are beautiful in black like our Lady of Sorrows.’

  Maddy stood there, draped in black silk and stuck with pins, trying not to move, trying not to weep. This was not how it was meant to be at all.

  Gloria stopped on the forecourt of Byrne the Builders office in Harrogate with her suitcase at her feet, hoping that she’d found the right place and praying that Greg would be on site. She stood in her gaberdine mac and black beret. It was raining and it had been a long walk from the bus stop. But Greg was her last hope since she’d been sacked last night.

  There she was, after one of Ken’s demanding visits, feeling cheap and tired, climbing in through the little side window into the scullery that Doreen always left unlocked so they could come and go of a night. She was halfway in the room, bottom in the air, when a torch flashed, startling her, blinding her for a moment. She knew she was done for when she saw Mr and Mrs Partridge standing there. Next morning she was for the chop.

  ‘You’re on your way to becoming a first-class tart, young lady! Like mother like daughter, as I recall. Don’t deny it,’ said Mrs Partridge, peering down her spectacles.

  It was jus
t like the old days with The Rug on the warpath, her wig all of a quiver.

  ‘We caught you red-handed, yet another example of moral lassitude from you girls. The war has a lot to answer for, allowing such antics. We don’t want domestics setting a bad example to our boys.’ The Rug was barking from her high horse, looking down on her as if she was muck, and Gloria saw red.

  ‘Don’t you speak of my mother, you old bitch! What I do in my private time out of this prison is my business!’ It all rattled out like bullets from a gun. ‘You can stick this job where the sun don’t shine!’

  ‘Get out at once, and don’t think of asking for a reference. I always knew you were trouble. You’ll come to a sticky end, my girl, if you carry on like this.’

  ‘With pleasure, you old bat! I pity the poor little buggers having to do time in this Dotheboys Hall. You know, we had a right old party when you left the Old Vic.’

  Gloria was determined to have the last word, storming off full of righteous indignation. This move had been a mistake, and Ken turning up and pestering her just made it worse. But in the cold reality of dawn she’d sobered up, knowing she had no job, nowhere to sleep and very little cash in her purse.

  For a second she even thought about apologising to The Rug and her priggish husband, but not about going back to Ken in Bradford. After all those awful sessions in the hotel room lately, she still hadn’t got all her negatives and she hated him for what he wanted from her. What a fool she’d been! How had she ever thought him a decent bloke or an artist? He was making money out of her stupidity and she hated him.

  At least if she left she could shake him off good and proper, disappear with no forwarding address and this time he would never find her. There was only one person she knew nearby, and Greg wouldn’t see her short. This was her big chance now to claim him for herself. There would be no Maddy to queer her pitch, but she’d have to make him believe her sob story. He was her only chance to get out of this mess.

  The forecourt of Byrne’s was lined with expensive cars, and there was a young girl eyeing her up through the office window. Gloria stood there all of a dither, not sure what to do next, but then it came to her. Do something dramatic…The office girl stood up just as she collapsed in a heap over her case in a faint.