Meadow Lane

by Maureen Reynolds

  Sadie was relieved to see his wife, although pretty with dark hair, wasn’t a patch on her. The two children, a boy and a girl, looked primary-school age. She handed it back. ‘What a lovely family. Where do you live?’

  ‘We moved to our new house in Beechwood not long ago.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I better be getting along but it’s been great seeing you again.’

  Sadie started to cry, much to the barman’s scrutiny and Peter’s dismay. She wiped her eyes and looked at him. ‘I should never have left you, Peter, I regret it but my head was turned by Ed who seemed so glamorous but has turned out to be an ordinary corn farmer in Nebraska.’

  Peter was desperate to escape but he said, ‘You broke my heart, Sadie. I asked you to marry me after I did my national service but then you sent me that letter when I was in Germany. If I remember rightly you wrote it after you had married your husband.’

  Sadie looked sad. ‘Yes I know and I’m so sorry.’

  Peter looked angry. ‘Do you know what letters like that are called in the army? “Dear John” letters, and they are so hurtful. When I came home on leave you were away as a GI bride. I took ages to get over you.’

  Sadie said she was sorry again but Peter stood up. ‘I have to get off home as Norma always has the meal ready and we are expecting her mum and dad to come round later.’ He stopped and bent over her. ‘I would be grateful if you don’t make our past life known at the shop as I don’t want Norma to hear any gossip.’ On that final note he left.

  Sadie, instead of being downhearted, was pleased. She was a great reader of faces and she knew he was still in love with her. It would be sad for his wife and family but maybe this meeting was her destiny. She walked over to the small counter and ordered a gin and tonic. She felt its warmth spread over her and she felt relaxed and languid. She was no stranger to alcohol as along with Ed and Joel she would drink rye and soda or bottles of beer on their verandah on summer nights.

  When she stood up after her drink she suddenly felt unsteady. The barman was polishing glasses but she knew he was watching her. Pulling herself up she walked to the door with as much dignity as her high heels would allow.

  She wasn’t sure if she would manage to walk up the hill and she knew she shouldn’t have ordered a proper drink. She suddenly realised she hadn’t had anything to eat all day so that was the reason the drink had gone to her head. She knew she had to get home to make a meal for Eddie and herself but when she reached the house she was grateful to find that Grace had given her son his evening meal. Maryanne gave her a sharp look but said nothing as she watched her making some tea and toast with a boiled egg.

  26

  Peter felt a mixture of emotions as he sat on the top deck of the bus. He couldn’t believe that Sadie had shown up again and also in close proximity of his workspace. She looked almost the same as the last time he had seen her. It had been at the railway station in the autumn of 1944 as he set off to do his national service.

  On his first leave they had made plans to get engaged then be married when his two-year stint was over. Then he had been posted to Germany and the courtship had carried on by letters until that fateful day when she said she had married her American sailor. Seemingly his ship had docked in Dundee and she had fallen in love with him – a whirlwind affair as she described it.

  That night in Bremen after getting the letter he had gone out and got drunk but thankfully his two pals had realised what had happened and they got him back to the barracks safely. Charlie had said the next morning, ‘Don’t worry, mate, you’re not alone in getting a “Dear John” letter so just forget her as there are hundreds of girls to meet.’

  But he was heartbroken as Sadie had been the most important person in his life and he spent the rest of his service feeling his life had ended. Then he met Norma at his aunt’s house and he found happiness again.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ he asked himself as the bus rumbled its way towards his destination. He was aware he still felt attracted to her and he even remembered she was wearing the same perfume as she had all those years ago. It was Coty L’Aimant and he had given her a large bottle that last Christmas. Now she had been sitting across from him with the same perfume and the same lovely face.

  He almost passed his stop as he was deep in thought and he had to rush to get off. As he made his way to the house he dithered about telling Norma about Sadie but when he opened the door, Peter and Laura rushed to meet him.

  ‘Daddy, you’re late. Mummy has had to keep the tea warm in the oven.’

  Norma popped her head around the kitchen door. ‘Don’t listen to them, Peter. They are on their way to bed. Mum and Dad can’t come tonight but they’ll be here tomorrow.’

  A warm, happy feeling washed over him as he ushered the kids into the bedroom.

  ‘Read us a story, Daddy.’

  He looked at his wife and she nodded. ‘The meal will keep another fifteen minutes.’

  Later, as they sat watching television, he almost mentioned meeting Sadie but his courage failed him. He didn’t want anything to hurt Norma as she and his children were his whole life. Before going to bed she asked him, ‘Is everything all right at work, Peter? You’ve been very quiet tonight.’

  He was mortified. ‘Yes, the work is fine. I just feel a bit tired tonight, that’s all.’

  However at three o’clock in the morning he awoke from a vivid dream of Sadie. They were together again, his hands stroking her lovely long hair and her face was upturned to his in a loving look. He made his way to the kitchen and drank a glass of cold water where he made up his mind to keep out of Sadie’s way as he couldn’t allow another meeting in a pub or indeed anywhere. He was dreading going in to work the next morning and he almost pretended to be sick. Norma gave him a strange look.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Peter? You look very pale.’

  He picked up his bag and assured her he was fine but he was churned up inside and desperate for it not to show. ‘I’ll see you all tonight.’

  The children came running through in their pyjamas. Five-year-old Laura’s ones had teddy bears on hers but Peter, who felt more grown up at eight years old, wore plain blue ones.

  ‘See you tonight, Daddy,’ they said as he kissed them goodbye.

  He grinned. ‘Do I have a choice? Now get ready for school and be good.’

  When he reached the workshop it was already open. There was no sign of Sadie but fifteen minutes later Bert came in and mentioned she had arrived late. ‘I hope she’s going to be a better timekeeper than this,’ he muttered to David, the boss.

  ‘If she’s not then we’ll have to let her go,’ David replied.

  The two young apprentices groaned with dismay at the thought of losing this attractive woman who was a vast improvement on the last one who had been with the firm for years but had finally retired. What a dragon she had been. Peter felt a sense of relief that Sadie might not be long with the firm but if that wasn’t the case then he had decided during the night that he would look for another job. He was due to go out to fit a television aerial to a house in Fintry and he was glad to escape. As he made his way in the work’s van he thought it was like escaping jail.

  However the job didn’t take that long so he was back in the workshop at closing time. He was dismayed when he saw Sadie waiting outside. She made it look as if their meeting was accidental but as he walked away, she stayed a couple of steps behind. When they were out of sight of the shop she caught up.

  ‘I see you get your bus at the top of the Wellgate steps and I’m going that way as well,’ she said. Peter almost made a run for it but if it meant just walking to the bus stop then that would be the end of it. Sadie, however, had other ideas.

  ‘I thought we might go to the pictures one night.’

  Peter said that wasn’t possible as his wife wouldn’t want that.

  She sounded surprised by his abruptness. ‘I wasn’t asking your wife to come along, Peter. As old friends I thought we could have a night out togethe
r. We used to have such fun in the old days.’

  Peter stopped and looked at her. She looked so appealing that he wanted to be kind to her but he knew if he went down that road she would make more and more demands on the pretext of being old friends. He didn’t mean his words to come out as harshly as they did. ‘Sadie, I’m a married man now with a wife and children I love very much. You are also married with a son and my advice is to go back to your husband and make a life for yourself with him.’

  Sadie was angry at being rebuffed. ‘Oh, stop being so perfectly married, it doesn’t suit you.’

  By now Peter was slowly getting annoyed. ‘I won’t deny I was madly in love with you years ago, in fact I thought you were my whole world when we planned to get married after my army service, but you changed all that when you married your husband. It took me a couple of years to get over you and that was with the help of my wife Norma. I don’t like working in the same place as you but if you have any decent feelings you’ll keep away from me and not bother me again.’

  He marched away quickly, leaving her in tears, but he knew he had to distance himself from her as he now realised how selfish she was. This was something he had noticed during his years with her but he had put it down to her young age and by now she should have grown up and stopped wanting everything to go her way.

  Sadie walked alone, wiping tears from her eyes. She could do with a drink but she didn’t fancy going back into that lounge bar with the curious barman looking at her. She knew there was an off-licence shop on Strathmartine Road so she made her way there where she bought a half bottle of gin and a bottle of tonic water.

  Back home she discovered there was no one in. Eddie would be with the Gows but she had no idea where her mother was, not that she was bothered. She poured a large measure of gin into a tumbler and added the tonic water. After a few sips she felt calm again but decided not to bother cooking anything. She then had a second drink before putting the two bottles in a bag under her bed.

  She was lying on her bed when she heard Eddie. She called out, ‘I’ll get your tea ready, Eddie, just give me a minute.’ She struggled to her feet and was amazed when she almost fell over onto the floor. Surely a couple of drinks wouldn’t do that, she thought, until she noticed the bottle of gin now lying on the table and it was half empty.

  She staggered through to the kitchen but Eddie was in his room. She called his name but he didn’t open the door. ‘I’ve had my tea at Evie’s house,’ he said.

  Sadie was relieved she didn’t have to cook but she said, ‘I must see Grace and thank her and offer to pay for your food.’

  Eddie didn’t answer and finding the house quiet she decided to go and see Granny Duff. Bella was listening to the wireless and was surprised by the sudden appearance of Sadie. She knew she had been drinking but she didn’t mention it. ‘Sadie, how are you?’

  Sadie was feeling sorry for herself and moaned. ‘I’m totally fed up. I got a telling off at work this morning for being late and I found out that an ex-boyfriend of mine works there. I tried being friendly with him but he snubbed me and was quite nasty.’

  Bella was dismayed by the dishevelled sight of the woman. She was unsure what to say, as it had been years since she left Meadow Lane. Bella didn’t know what her life was like in America although she had heard rumours from Martha, but then she was a gossip who liked to dramatise every situation.

  ‘Are you happy with your life in Nebraska?’

  This simple statement opened up the floodgates and Sadie’s face twisted in a scowl. ‘It’s been terrible and nothing like I imagined it would be. For a start we live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. All my husband and his father think about is the growing of corn or the price of corn.’

  Bella said that was normal. ‘You must have known his background when you married him, Sadie.’

  Sadie looked at her as if she was mad. ‘No I didn’t. He was so dashing and different from the boys in Dundee and it was love at first sight.’

  ‘Didn’t he mention his background when you were planning to get married?’

  Sadie looked down at her hands, which she noticed were shaking slightly. ‘He might have mentioned living on a farm but I thought it was like the farms around here that are not far from towns. Our farm is so far from civilisation that it could be on the moon.’ Sadie leant forward, a serious look on her face. ‘Do you know how far we are from the nearest town, Granny?’

  Bella said she didn’t.

  ‘It’s over twenty miles away and that twenty miles is nothing but fields with small houses dotted about. Eddie gets the school bus every morning then Ed goes off to work and I sit in the house looking at miles of earth.’ She rubbed her forehead as she felt the beginning of a headache. ‘I spend every day on my own apart from Esther who is my father-in-law’s housekeeper and she has the mental handicap of an idiot. All she does with her life is cooking and baking and knitting and making garish-looking quilts.’

  Bella thought she sounded like a great woman with wonderful housekeeping skills that were similar to her own mother when she was alive.

  Sadie was now on her soapbox. ‘I managed to get a job in the town on my monthly visit for shopping. It was just an assistant in the general store but it was a busy place and I would have met lots of people to chat to but Ed put his foot down. Said he couldn’t drive me there every day and pick me up. I said I could go on the school bus but he said that wasn’t allowed and the bus that went there wouldn’t be suitable either.’ She sounded angry.

  Bella could well imagine the boredom of a young woman not born into this community. ‘Couldn’t you learn to drive?’ She stopped. ‘In whatever car you’ve got.’

  ‘It’s a truck and Ed said it was needed for transport on the farm. Anyway, it was too big for me to drive.’

  Bella felt sorry for her frustration but she had been so starry eyed with her American GI that she hadn’t stopped to weigh up the consequences of her hasty marriage. Still, she wasn’t alone in that respect and she could name a dozen young brides who were just as unhappy here in Dundee. ‘Can I give you a bit of advice, Sadie?’

  Sadie nodded. ‘I always liked coming here when I was young as you were so good to me.’

  Bella was pleased with the compliment. She had known Sadie from the age of four and had watched her growing up into a beautiful woman who sadly was a handful for her mother. She well remembered the tantrums of those early years that never really went away. It seemed as if Maryanne couldn’t handle her and she often gave in to her daughter’s demands.

  ‘All I can say is for you and Eddie to go back to your husband.’ She couldn’t finish as Sadie reacted with fury.

  ‘I’ve just told you I don’t want to go back.’

  Bella held up her hand. ‘Just listen, Sadie. Please consider going back and making your husband understand your need for that job. Make him listen to your unhappiness and boredom and tell him he has to consider your feelings. Can you do that?’

  Sadie said she would think about it and stood up to go. ‘All I want to do is make a life for Eddie and me here.’

  Bella said she understood. ‘Give it a go and if your husband is still stubborn to your wishes then at least you’ve tried and then you can make plans for a better life.’

  After she was gone, Bella sat very still. There was no easy answer to an unhappy marriage but was she the best person to give advice? After all she had never married and who knows, maybe she would have been in the same situation had Davie survived the war.

  The door opened and she half expected Sadie to walk in but it was Albert. ‘I see you’ve had the fair Sadie keeping you company. I saw her leave and she didn’t look well.’ Bella had no intention of repeating her conversation but Albert continued, ‘She was always a problem, even as a child. I saw lots of arguments when I used to collect the insurance money every week. I always felt sorry for Maryanne.’

  Bella looked at him and shook her head. ‘The one I feel sorry for is Sadie. She’s at a crossroads in her li
fe and I worry about it.’

  ‘She should be happy, Bella. She has the looks of a film star and a lovely son, what can go wrong?’

  Bella had a deep feeling of the unknown. ‘Yes, you’re right, Albert. What can go wrong?’

  When Sadie returned home, Eddie and her mother were nowhere to be seen so she went into her room and poured out another drink.

  Peter, on the other hand, was stone cold sober as he made his way home. Like Sadie, his hands were also shaking but his were with worry. Sadie could become a nuisance at work as it wouldn’t take long for the staff to figure out their past relationship. This wasn’t the problem: her actions were. He realised she had always been erratic and self-obsessed but he had been too much in love with her to bother about it.

  He now saw what a lucky escape he had had and his wife Norma, although she didn’t have the same glamorous looks, was his whole life. As he was climbing the stairs he made up his mind to leave his job although he loved working for Fleming Electrics. There were always loads of jobs for electricians and he knew he was good at his job. He would look at the newspaper after his tea and see what was available, but he was unsure how he would explain this sudden decision to Norma. He would give it another few days then he would tell her the truth. Maybe Sadie would become the best timekeeper but there again he remembered Bert being annoyed at her lateness. If she kept that up then they would give her the sack. He suddenly felt sorry for her.

  27

  The next morning the postman delivered four letters to Meadow Lane, two of which were for the MacCallums and turned out to be bills. Sadie awoke to the sound of Eddie talking to the man as he was getting ready for school and she was mortified to see she was late for work again. She vaguely recalled her mother trying to waken her up at seven o’clock but she must have gone back to sleep again.

  She had a headache and was trying to get up when Eddie rushed into the room clutching an open blue airmail letter. He was in a rage.