Meet Me Under the Clock

by Annie Murray

  ‘I owe you an apology,’ she went on. ‘I feel stupid and ashamed of how I behaved at Cardington, and for not answering your letter.’ Again she ground to a halt. I miss you so much, she wanted to go on. You’re the only person who’s ever . . .

  In the end she told Dorrie a few things about her life, about her son, and the fact that she was working again now. She wanted to say so many things, but simply put, ‘I wish I hadn’t messed everything up so badly.’ She signed off, ‘Love, Audrey’.

  She didn’t keep reading it over and over. If she did, she would end up rewriting it dozens of times, and how could she ever be sure of the right thing to say? The envelope was her last one. She had no idea whether Dorrie was still at RAF Hendon. But Dorrie’s home address in High Wycombe was still burned into Audrey’s memory. She addressed it there, and the next day bought a stamp and slipped it into the post before she could change her mind.

  On the Friday she came home to find a telegram waiting for her. She looked in bewilderment as her mother handed it to her.

  ‘We thought it was for Sylvia,’ Mom said. ‘It nearly gave us both a seizure.’

  It’s all right if it’s for me, Audrey thought rather sadly. There was no one out there for her to dread hearing bad news about.

  ‘Who on earth’s it from?’ Jack asked. Everyone was crowding round, curious.

  ‘No idea.’ She frowned.

  CAN YOU MEET ME TOMORROW AT FOUR PM STOP SNOW HILL SATION STOP DORRIE

  Audrey thought her heart was going to escape from her chest. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. Then, realizing that Mom, Sylvia and Jack were all staring curiously at her, she said, ‘Well, what a surprise! D’you remember Dorrie, the girl I was in the WAAF with? She’s taken it into her head to get in touch.’

  ‘Oh yes, her,’ Pauline said, turning away. ‘Well, tell her not to send a flaming telegram next time.’

  ‘All right, I will,’ Audrey said. She was trying to sound measured and only slightly excited. Her body was standing soberly in the kitchen, while her mind was turning crazed cartwheels outside and along the street, and all the way to Snow Hill, in a fizzing ecstasy of happiness. ‘I suppose I’d better go and see what she wants.’

  Sixty-Three

  Four o’clock, Dorrie’s telegram had said. Audrey had arrived at Snow Hill far too early and, by the time it was nearly four, she had been standing for what felt like an eternity looking back and forth across the booking hall. She was such a bag of nerves that she could hardly stand still, shivering in her cotton frock, even though it was a hot day. She kept looking up at the huge clock face. Surely the hands were not moving? Wasn’t that exactly what they had said the last time she looked up? The time between ten to four and five to four seemed to pass with the slowness of an entire year.

  What if Dorrie did not come? she kept thinking. But what if she did? She felt on the brink of something so important, yet so frightening, that she could hardly bear being inside her own skin. For days now her thoughts had been chasing round and round. The truth that she had been running away from for so long was now breathing down her neck.

  And this truth was that, of everyone she had met in her life, the person she loved – and could not stop loving – was Dorrie Cooper. If this meant that she was one of those women who loved women (or at least loved Dorrie), then surely now she was going to have to accept it. What sort of dull, dark, loveless life would she continue to lead with no Dorrie in it? Instead there might be a string of men who, even if they were as nice as pie, meant nothing to her. She’d already had a son out of wedlock. People judged and condemned and poked their noses in, but they were never the people that really mattered. What was more important: people approving of you because you did everything the way they thought you should, or finding a way to be happy?

  But there was another agonizing route that her mind kept chasing along. Maybe Dorrie was coming to see her to tell her something. Perhaps she had changed her mind about how she felt and had found a man. Maybe she was getting married? Or she was emotionally tied to another woman and had just come to see Audrey as a courtesy. Audrey told herself she was mad to have hopes of anything – and she was not even sure what ‘anything’ might be, in any case. What did such women do in this situation? She didn’t know any.

  Gazing across at all the people moving in and out of the booking hall, she was constantly trying to pick out a familiar face among them. By the time she did, the face was so close that she did not have time to prepare herself. There was Dorrie almost upon her, in her WAAF uniform, her honey-coloured hair gathered under the cap, a bright, expectant look on her face.

  ‘Audrey!’ Dorrie said loudly. She was showing no signs of nerves, though Audrey knew her well enough to realize this did not mean she was as calm as she looked. She came striding up and then stopped, at a loss. Audrey looked into her clear, blue eyes and Dorrie suddenly glanced down for a second, overtaken by uncertainty. But she gathered herself quickly and looked up again, smiling.

  ‘Well, where’s my namesake? Didn’t you bring him with you?’

  ‘No, he’s with Mom,’ Audrey said. The crowds ebbed and flowed about them, but for her, in that moment, no one else mattered or even existed. ‘Oh, Dorrie, it’s so nice to see you again.’

  ‘And you, you daft baggage.’ Dorrie put her holdall down and held out her arms. For a moment the two of them hugged each other in a tight embrace.

  ‘Mom says you’re welcome to stay,’ Audrey said.

  ‘That’d be nice,’ Dorrie said hesitantly. ‘I mean, I could go back down tonight, but . . .’

  ‘You’ve only just got here!’ Audrey tried to sound relaxed, though her heart was thudding like mad. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of char somewhere, shall we, before we get the bus?’

  ‘The refreshment room I saw looked rather swish,’ Dorrie said.

  They found a space to sit down in the gracious refreshment room, with a cup of tea each. Suddenly they were facing each other across a small table. Dorrie appeared rounder in the face, Audrey thought, and looked very healthy.

  ‘You’re looking skinny,’ Dorrie said as they took each other in. Her eyes moved over Audrey’s face. ‘Is that young man taking it out of you?’

  ‘You could say,’ Audrey said. ‘What with feeding him and running about after him.’

  ‘Gosh!’ Dorrie said, sounding awed. ‘Motherhood.’

  That seemed to stop the conversation for a moment, but then Dorrie started talking fast, as if she was afraid that any silence would make them both seize up and be unable to start again. She kept her eyes lowered, fiddling with a teaspoon as she talked.

  ‘I came straight away, because I wanted to see you – after your letter. The thing is, I shan’t be around much longer. It looks as if I’m going to get an overseas posting.’

  Audrey felt a sinking, devastating sensation inside. What had she expected? Dorrie, being the person she was, had wanted to make things right, and had come before she was sent abroad for who knew how long. But none of this meant anything else.

  ‘Gosh,’ Audrey said. She could feel the WAAF lingo coming back to her; she had lost it while she was at home. ‘So, where are you going?’

  ‘Ceylon, by the look of things. We’ll hear soon whether we’re going, and when. It’s rather exciting actually. By all accounts it’s a very beautiful place – paradise on earth, some say.’ She was chattering away fast. Her voice, Audrey noticed, had become slightly more clipped over the past two years. She put it down to WAAF life – unless it was because she was nervous.

  ‘That sounds like an adventure.’ Audrey found, to her alarm, that she was very close to tears. Above all, she suddenly wanted Dorrie to leave again. She had seen her, she had apologized, but now they inhabited quite different worlds and Dorrie was about to depart for yet another one, not even realizing that she was taking Audrey’s heart with her. What could they possibly have in common now?

  ‘If I go, I’m going to write about it like mad,’ Dorrie went on. ‘I’m even more sur
e now that’s what I want – when we get peace, finally. I want to write about things – report on them. So I might as well get into practice.’ She paused, suddenly sober, looking down at the tabletop with its rings of wet. ‘I thought I might as well. Go, I mean.’

  ‘It’ll be very interesting,’ Audrey said carefully.

  Dorrie looked at her suddenly, a frank, rather sad look. ‘I just meant, I thought I’d go, because there didn’t seem to be much on offer for me here.’

  A host of questions hung in the air amid the buzz of other people’s conversations. An atmosphere grew between them, more tense and expectant by the second, until it was unbearable. They sat looking at each other over their half-drunk cups of tea. Audrey felt she barely knew where to begin. What was Dorrie saying? Did she mean . . . ? She had found the courage to come here, and Audrey now knew it was up to her to say something that would let them talk properly. She owed Dorrie that. Her heart was beating so fast that she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Oh.’ She laid a hand on her chest, struggling to take a deep breath. ‘I feel . . . Sorry. It’s silly. I feel ever so nervous and wound-up.’

  Dorrie put her head on one side. ‘Why?’ She looked sweet, vulnerable, when she could have been forgiven for looking bitter and closed.

  ‘Because . . .’ Audrey gazed at Dorrie, afraid to speak. At last she managed to bring out the words, ‘Do you have anyone, Dorrie? Anyone else?’

  A flicker of pain passed over Dorrie’s face. ‘No. It’s not easy, as you can imagine. It’s not that I haven’t tried. But the thing is . . .’ She looked away for a moment, her cheeks flushing pink. Bravely she turned to Audrey again. ‘No one else is you.’

  Her words made Audrey’s already-hammering heart beat even harder, filling her with pulses of fear and confusion, but also with a growing, amazed joy. She reached out and, for a moment, wrapped her hand over Dorrie’s on the table. In a low voice she said, ‘No one else is you, either.’

  On the bus to Kings Heath they sat holding hands, under cover of Dorrie’s bag. Audrey had a heady, defiant feeling of being on a crazed, adventurous voyage into the unknown and being overjoyed to be there, if the journey felt as loving and right as this. At the same time, this embarkation felt like coming home and putting your slippers on.

  At home Dorrie was welcomed as Audrey’s friend, and everyone was pleased to have a guest. Sylvia was looking more relaxed than she had in many months because, after D-Day in June, Laurie had been put on a tour of instruction duty for six months. For the moment he was as safe as he could be. She greeted Dorrie warmly. Dorrie was enchanted with little Dorian and sat with him on her lap in the back room as she chatted away to Sylvia and Jack, and to their parents, about the WAAF and her imminent posting.

  ‘We haven’t heard about any of Audrey’s Air Force friends for a long time,’ Pauline said to her. She was watching them both with a slight air of puzzlement. Audrey considered whether Mom was wondering exactly why her grandson had been named after this young woman. Audrey could see that her father was rather curious about Dorrie, too. Dorrie’s forthright, energetic southern ways were not what they were used to, but they seemed to have taken a shine to her. Jack hung around too, shy and silent for once, but obviously fascinated.

  ‘No, I’ve been dreadful about keeping in touch,’ Dorrie said. Audrey looked at her, as if to say: You shouldn’t be the one taking the blame.

  ‘I expect you’ve been busy,’ Sylvia said. ‘The time flies by, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly does,’ Dorrie said. ‘But I thought, as I’m about to go overseas, I should go and look up some old friends. After all, Audrey came to stay with my people once, didn’t you? They still ask after you. And I hadn’t met this little fellow, either. She leaned round and kissed Dorian’s cheek. Audrey felt a thrill of delight on seeing this. ‘And you’re so old, aren’t you already, little man?’

  Dorian kept turning round and staring at her with big eyes, seemingly fascinated. He wanted to fiddle with her bright, polished buttons, and Dorrie gave him her cap to play with as well.

  ‘I don’t know where you’re going to sleep,’ Mom fretted. Jack, you could come and sleep downstairs.’

  ‘No,’ Audrey said firmly, before Jack had a chance to agree. ‘No need. Dorrie can have my bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor.’

  ‘I suppose you girls want to chatter half the night,’ Ted remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ Audrey said. ‘I expect we do!’

  ‘Won’t it wake the lad?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Audrey replied. ‘He’d sleep through an earthquake, once he’s gone off.’

  When they were finally alone in Audrey’s room, with Dorian tucked up in his cot, they had the chance to catch up on all the time since they last met. They lay in Audrey’s bed, huddled together, their arms round each other, and stopped talking every now and then just to gaze on each other and exchange kisses.

  ‘Tell me about everything,’ Dorrie said. ‘How it’s been, having a child, being here – all of it?’

  Audrey told her all she could think of. The main thing she kept coming back to was, ‘I’ve missed you, Dorrie. I was so stupid and cowardly, the way I behaved. I was so terrified at the thought that I might be different. Of what people would think and say.’

  ‘What about now? How do you feel?’

  ‘Terrified,’ she confessed. She felt a pulse of laughter go through Dorrie. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes. I think you have to get used to it.’

  Audrey lifted her head and looked at her. ‘Is this real? Are we real? I don’t know anyone else like this . . . Do you?’

  ‘There were two teachers at my school. Everyone called them Mr and Mrs Knowles. They were really Miss Knowles and Miss MacIntosh, but Miss Knowles dressed in a very mannish way.’

  ‘Were they nice?’

  Dorrie giggled. ‘Not very, no. Miss Knowles had a drink problem as well, and used to rave at times. And Miss MacIntosh tiptoed around her like a terrified mouse.’

  Audrey put her head down on the pillow again. She felt Dorrie’s soft hair with her cheek. ‘Does it have to be like that?’

  ‘I hope not.’ Dorrie turned to her, very serious now. ‘I truly hope not. Look, I’ve probably got to go away now . . .’

  ‘I know – I wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘But it’ll give us time to think, to get used to the idea again. Because, I don’t know about you, but I’m in this for the long run. I don’t want to lose you again, Audrey, my dearest. I know we might seem a strangely assorted pair on the face of it, but, crazy as it may be, I love you and that’s how it is.’

  Audrey pressed her lips against Dorrie’s cheek. Closing her eyes, she experienced another moment of bliss, of sweet homecoming. ‘I love you too. You’re the only one for me – I know that now. Thank God you came back. Thank you for coming back.’

  ‘And I’ll come back again.’

  ‘Write to me?’

  ‘Of course I’ll write to you. That’s one thing I can actually do! And you’ve got to write back.’

  ‘I will. Pages and pages, just telling you how much I love you.’

  ‘We can worry about what everyone else thinks later on.’ Dorrie slid her hand inside Audrey’s nightdress. Their eyes met in delicious understanding. ‘But tonight no one is any the wiser, except us.’

  Sixty-Four

  February 1945

  ‘Here we are, love – look, it’s finally finished.’

  Marjorie Gould opened the door of Raymond’s old bedroom, which had become Sylvia and Laurie’s married quarters. Sylvia knew that Marjorie loved it when they were both there, whenever Laurie was on leave, and having the house full of life again. Stanley had moved Laurie’s bed in there and had pushed it side-by-side with Raymond’s. Now, spread across both beds, was a colourful patchwork quilt that Marjorie had been stitching for months.

  ‘Oh, it’s beautiful!’ Sylvia exclaimed. She had seen some of it in the making, Marjorie sewing sections of it, little hexagons of
colours and flowers. Now it was all fastened together, each section fitting into the others in coloured patterns. Sylvia kissed her mother-in-law affectionately. ‘It looks so nice! Oh, thank you.’ She went and stroked it, staring at it in wonder.

  ‘It’s a late wedding present,’ Marjorie said. Half the neighbourhood had contributed scraps of material to it.

  ‘I’m glad you like it, love.’

  ‘I love it,’ Sylvia said. As she leaned over the bed, running her hand over it, a surge of nausea passed through her and she closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Marjorie asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Sylvia was longing to share the news with Marjorie that she would soon be giving her a grandchild to keep Dorian company, but first she must tell Laurie. It was only right that he should know, before his family. The past three months had been a more peaceful time, with him working as an instructor. On his last home leave at the end of December, when they had made love in this room – and unknown yet to him – he had left behind a tiny piece of the future!

  She straightened up groggily and managed a smile. ‘Thank you, Marjorie – I think that’s the nicest present I’ve ever had. It’s absolutely beautiful.’

  Marjorie beamed at her. ‘I’ve enjoyed doing it. I’m going to miss it. In fact, with the bits I’ve got left I think, I’d better make one for little Dorrie – although he’s getting a bit big for a baby-quilt now.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you could start on one,’ Sylvia said, not meeting her eye. ‘After all – you never know.’

  The next night she and Laurie were snuggled up under the blankets and colourful quilt when she told him. They had already made love and were warm and relaxed, relishing being able to lie together in peace, to love one another and talk. Sylvia snuggled against Laurie’s shoulder, one hand on his warm belly. When the moment felt right, she raised herself onto one elbow and looked into his eyes. She had thought Laurie seemed a bit distant, as if lost in thought, and now she wanted to claim his full attention.