The girls entered the busy tea room and were immediately spotted by Betty, who waved at them to come over. They felt a little sheepish as they sat down after greeting Douglas like a long-lost friend and confessing that they’d just spotted the proposal after admiring the single solitaire ring Betty was gazing at with delight.
‘There’s no need to pretend you’ve not seen Douglas in a while,’ Betty smiled as she reached out and held his hand. ‘He has explained everything.’
‘Does this mean we have a wedding to look forward to?’ Maisie said as her friends looked horrified.
‘Honestly, Maisie, it may be a little soon for a question like that,’ Freda said with a nervous laugh, but all the same she looked hopefully towards the Woolworths manager. ‘After all, they’ve only just become engaged.’
‘There’s plenty of time for things like that,’ Betty smiled. ‘Let me enjoy the anticipation for a while.’
Douglas called the waitress over and ordered tea for five, cheese on toast and a selection of cakes to celebrate. The buns had very few currants and were a little on the small side but were enjoyed as much as if they were wedding cake and champagne at a posh London hotel.
‘There’s one thing, girls. Can we keep this our little secret for now otherwise I’ll have the staff in a fluster when we return to work?’
‘But you’re wearing a ring on your wedding finger. Won’t people notice?’ Sarah asked.
‘If Douglas is in agreement, I will wear the ring on a chain around my neck for now until we have a proper announcement.’
‘And I’m going to miss all the fun,’ Maisie said in a pretend huff before looking up at the clock. ‘Oh my God, I’m late. David will think I’ve run off and left him,’ she shrieked before kissing them all goodbye and rushing from the tea room.
‘I’m going to miss her so much,’ Sarah said, watching her friend until she was out of sight.
‘Now, are you going to tell me what this is all about, Jago?’ Bob asked none too happily as they walked back to the farm. His wrists ached from the rope used to tie his hands together and he was still trembling after the fear of being held at gunpoint.
‘I’m sorry you were handled roughly, Bob, but you shouldn’t have interfered in what doesn’t concern you,’ Jago said as he picked his way through a narrow pathway that skirted a field.
All Bob knew was that this was not the way he’d walked when following Pat’s boys in the dead of night. Even as dawn broke he could not identify where he was until, after walking through a small copse, he found himself at the back entrance to the farmhouse. ‘I’ll leave you here and get myself dressed if that’s allowed,’ he said, looking Jago in the eye. ‘Then I want some answers. You may do as you please, but when it involves two children I’m honour-bound to inform their mother and their grandmother, who will be none too pleased that their boys have been put in danger.’
Jago sighed. ‘Come in and have some breakfast first. Pat will have it ready by now and there’ll be plenty as our guests did not arrive as planned.’
‘You mean Pat knows what you’re up to?’
‘A select few are aware,’ Jago replied, leading the way into the farmhouse.
Pat greeted him with a broad smile as she stood, frying pan in hand, by the Aga, her smile disappearing as she spotted Bob. ‘What’s going on, Jago? Where are our guests?’
Bob kicked off his shoes and left them by the door before washing his hands at the kitchen sink. All the time his mind was churning over thoughts of smuggling and that Ruby’s family was involved. He might have retired from the police force, but he still believed that wrongdoers should answer for their actions. For guns to be involved meant this was not simply a few bottles of brandy on the black market. He needed to bring these people to task without hurting Ruby’s family. Accepting a mug of tea from a now silent Pat, he took a sip of the hot liquid before glaring at Jago. ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about or have I got to guess?’
‘I don’t understand how you’ve become involved, Bob?’ Pat interrupted. ‘Was it my boys? I told them to keep their mouths shut.’
Bob groaned inwardly. He had hoped that Pat and her two eldest children had become unwittingly involved, but it seemed from the way she spoke that they were as guilty as Jago. A sudden thought made him jerk upright in shock. ‘You’re working for the enemy, aren’t you?’ he said accusingly, pointing a finger at Jago. ‘You’re bringing in spies.’
Jago roared with laughter and sat opposite Bob as Pat slid plates heaped high with sausages, bacon and eggs towards them. ‘Your accusations couldn’t be further from the truth. Eat up and I’ll explain.’
Bob, although wanting to know what was behind what had happened out at the boathouse, tucked into his breakfast, as he felt almost faint with hunger after his recent experience. ‘I suppose all this grub is black market too,’ he added grumpily, not wishing Jago or Pat to think he condoned what had happened just because he was a guest at the table.
Jago nodded to the two boys to leave the table when they’d finished eating. ‘You can start loading the vegetables for market,’ he said. ‘I’ll be out directly.’
Pat cleared the dirty plates and left them in the stone sink. ‘I’ll leave you to it, shall I? I can take a cup of tea up to Mum.’
Jago nodded and leant back in his seat giving Bob a hard stare. ‘What exactly do you think we were doing down on the river?’ he asked.
Bob felt uncomfortable. If Jago and his friends were up to no good, then what would become of him? The man must stand over six feet in his stockinged feet and was as strong as the bull that Bob had seen in a nearby field. His fair hair and blue eyes gave the impression Jago could be a good sort, but his current demeanour still worried Bob. In for a penny, he thought to himself. He could always yell for Ruby and her daughter if things got sticky. Surely they wouldn’t let anything nasty happen to him? ‘I could ask the same of you,’ he replied, trying the same tactic. ‘Perhaps it’s you who should be explaining. After all, I was the one who had a gun to my back and ended up tied up just because I was following Ruby’s grandchildren in case they came to harm. I expected them to be up to boyish pranks, not involved in smuggling, or worse,’ he glowered.
Jago roared with laughter. ‘As much as I’d like to be thought of as a ne’er do well, like some of my ancestors who were smugglers, I’m afraid you are in for a disappointment, Bob. We are the good guys as they say in the westerns that Pat’s children seem to enjoy at the cinema.’
‘Good guys, how do you mean?’ Bob asked, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the scrubbed pine table, eager to hear what Jago had to say.
‘I haven’t always been a farmer. It took the outbreak of war for me to come back to Cornwall and take on special duties,’ he explained.
‘Well, farming is important in wartime,’ Bob agreed, but wondered why a strapping lad like him wasn’t serving his country elsewhere.
Jago held up his hand to stop Bob. ‘Yes, I’m a farmer but I also work for the government to try to bring the war to an end. They moved me back to the family farm from my desk job to oversee things from this end. Do you understand? I can’t say much more than that.’
Bob rubbed his chin as he thought about what Jago had said. ‘Special Operations Executive?’ he asked.
‘How do you know about that? It’s not the sort of thing a civilian usually has knowledge of.’
‘I don’t know much. As an ex-London bobby and with my work in the Home Guard I get to hear of things. Our unit back in Erith has recently received training in undercover work and sabotage and we know what to do in the event of an invasion. In a small way we are doing in Erith what you are doing down here. So, you see, we are on the same side. But what’s all this smuggling lark about?’
‘We’re not smuggling. Well, we are in a way but we . . . well, let’s say we work in the movement of men.’
‘I don’t understand. Do you mean you’re helping German spies come into the country? Surely not! I know I�
��m tired and probably not thinking properly, but this sounds ridiculous.’
Jago smiled. ‘There are times when we need to have our operatives enter enemy-controlled areas and it’s not possible to drop them by plane. There are other times when we need to get them out of the country pretty quickly. The problem is there is a bloody big stretch of water between England and France, so that’s where our fishermen come in.’
‘French and English?’ Bob asked, getting interested now that he knew his life wasn’t in imminent danger.
Jago nodded. ‘With so many inlets off the main river down here on the Lizard Peninsula we can hide away then slip out to sea and meet the fishing boats, and coming back it’s easy to hide away and not be found.’
Bob thought of Sarah’s husband, Alan, and how he’d been brought back home after his plane went down in enemy-occupied France. ‘You’re doing a bloody good job,’ he said gruffly. ‘But what happened last night? Why was I tied up and treated like a criminal?’
‘We’d had a problem with a pick-up and thought there was a spy in our midst. Usually I use only men I’ve personally recruited, but I was sent a couple direct from the London office and the day after we lost someone in France and the tip-off could have come from here. My men had just received my signal when you appeared.’
Bob was thoughtful. ‘Your team believed this old man from Erith was a spy? I suppose I should be flattered,’ he chuckled. ‘What happened last night?’
‘We were to rendezvous with a boat to pick up two airmen, but there wasn’t even a sighting of them.’
‘Did you hang around and wait?’
‘No, it’s too dangerous. We will wait for fresh orders . . . if they come.’
Bob was contemplating this information when Ruby joined them.
‘Whatever are you doing still wearing your pyjamas?’
‘I, um . . .’ Bob didn’t wish to lie to Ruby, but was stumped as he knew she would not be happy with her family being involved in all this.
‘I asked him to help me with a difficult calving,’ Jago answered without batting an eyelid.
He’s used to covering for himself, Bob thought with a slight chuckle.
Ruby tutted and turned to her daughter, who was watching the conversation with a wary look on her face. ‘Is it too early to use the telephone to contact Erith police station? I thought someone would have got back to us last night. I hardly slept worrying if those girls have been injured down in Canterbury. In fact, I thought I heard voices in the middle of the night.’
‘Most likely the chickens, Mum, they can make a right noise if a fox is about,’ Pat added quickly, glancing at Jago for support.
‘It would have been us, Mrs Caselton. We had to walk under your window to get to the barn.’
‘Bob, why don’t you make that telephone call for Mum while I cook her some breakfast. Fried or scrambled eggs, Mum?’
Jago showed them through to his office and cleared a chair of paperwork so Ruby could sit down and then left them alone. It wasn’t long before Bob was through to the police station he knew so well and was chatting to Mike, who had just come on duty. After a few brief sentences he passed the receiver over to Ruby. ‘Here you are, love. You chat to our Mike while I go and get changed. I won’t be long.’
When Bob returned, out of breath due to hurrying, he could see she wasn’t her usual self.
Ruby sat holding the telephone receiver, her thoughts many miles away with her family and friends in Erith. Her face had gone a ghostly white. ‘They were down there, Bob, while all that bombing was going on. All three of them.’
‘Three . . . who else went with Betty and Maisie? Are they all right?’
‘Our Freda was down there on that bloody big motorbike. What the hell she was doing there I don’t know.’
‘I’d think she was doing some work for the Fire Service,’ Bob said, quietly wondering still if the three girls were injured or not. ‘What happened?’
‘Freda’s fine, but the other two ended up in hospital with cuts and grazes. Maisie was worried about the baby, which is understandable. So much so that David was down there in a flash and has whisked her off to live with his family in Wiltshire until the baby is born.’ She turned to Bob with tears in her eyes and gripped his hand. ‘I should have been at home while those girls were in danger, not gallivanting off down here where it’s safe. Who knows what’s going to happen next?’
Bob put his arms around Ruby and rocked her gently as she cried. Looking to where Pat stood in the doorway, he was angered that the woman he loved was so upset. ‘Do any of us know?’ he said pointedly as Pat bent her head and turned away.
19
October 1942
Freda twirled around showing off her new dance frock. ‘No one would even guess that it was a hand-me-down, would they?’ she grinned. ‘Maisie would be so proud to know that her dressmaking lessons have created such a beautiful dress.’
‘She’d be just as proud to know that it came from something that’s been languishing in my loft since before Eddie passed away. I wore the dress to our Pat’s wedding. It must be all of fifteen years.’
‘Waste not, want not,’ Maureen said as she stepped back to check the hem of the dress. ‘That’s just about it. You’re ready to go to the ball. Best not let Vera see you in the dress as she is bound to open her mouth and say she recognizes the fabric. She could suck the joy out of anything that one.’
‘You can always move back here,’ Ruby said. ‘Why, I’ve never seen so many changes like the ones that were made around here in the few days that Bob and I were away in Cornwall. It’s almost like you were all waiting for me to disappear so you could upset the apple cart.’
‘Nothing could be further from the truth, Ruby Caselton, as you well know. Why, if I could move into my house sooner, rather than the six months I’m being told, I’d gladly hold you to your offer to continue living here, but it’s not fair on you, or your other lodgers, to be in the way. No, I can put up with Vera until Christmas, if that’s what it takes. I’ll only be at her house to sleep so it’s not so bad.’
‘Well, if it gets too much, you just come back here. I’m pleased Bob and our George put their boots up the backside of that landlord of yours. He had no right to make such threats. I reckon he was trying it on, picking on a woman on her own like that.’
Maureen nodded in agreement. ‘I’ll never be able to thank them enough for putting things straight. I feared I’d be out on the street the way things were going. Now the workmen are there every day putting things back to how they was.’
‘Not quite the way they were,’ Freda said as she unzipped her frock and pulled on her siren suit, before placing the poppy-red dress on a hanger and hooking it on the back of the door of Ruby’s front room. ‘Your house will be heaps better than ever before. Perhaps you should have a party to celebrate moving home, even if we do have to wait until Christmas. We could all bring something . . .’ she said with a grin, waiting to see what Maureen thought.
‘That’s a wonderful idea. I’ll chivvy along the builders. How about we set a date? I reckon the evening of Christmas Day would be something to look forward to,’ Maureen beamed. ‘Bob and George will be here soon. They’ve gone to see how things are progressing. It will be lovely to sleep under my own roof again, as much as I’ve liked staying with friends,’ she added quickly.
Freda took a pencil from the drawer of Ruby’s sideboard and made a large circle around the twenty-fifth of December on Ruby’s calendar. It was identical to the one that they’d all purchased the year before. ‘Nine weeks to go and so much to look forward to; Maisie will have had her baby by then.’
‘It seems strange not to have Maisie around,’ Ruby sighed. ‘I do miss her little ways. I’m not much of one for writing letters and the last one I received from her seemed kind of sad.’
‘That reminds me. I have a letter to send and I promised to post Sarah’s as well. I’ll put them in the post box before I go to the fire station for my next shift.�
�
‘Why, hello, Mike. Fancy bumping into you,’ Gwyneth smiled as she walked across the shop floor of Woolworths. ‘Was it something special you were looking for?’
Mike Jackson was mesmerized by the dark-haired woman dressed in her wine-coloured Woolworths uniform. It suited her perfectly. He could listen to her sing-song accent all day long as well as gaze into her velvety eyes. Giving himself a shake, he tried to think of an excuse as to why he was in the store. He’d taken to popping in on his way home from the police station on the off chance of catching Gwyneth. ‘Just a few seeds for the back garden. I’ve taken up a bit of the concrete and we’ve room for some more vegetables.’
‘You can never have enough of those,’ she said with a grin.
Mike felt a complete fool. He could never think of something clever or entertaining to say when in the pretty woman’s company. ‘Er . . . Gwyneth . . .’
‘Yes, Mike?’
‘I was wondering . . . I was wondering if you’d like to take a walk with me later this afternoon? There’s a funfair up at the recreation ground and I thought it would be a pleasant way to spend the afternoon.’
‘Why, that would be grand, Mike. Myfi would love that.’
Mike’s face fell. He hadn’t given a thought to Gwyneth’s daughter accompanying them. His only thought was having the woman he’d fallen in love with from afar alone for a few hours. Then he felt mean-spirited. Myfi was an adorable child even though she’d never uttered a word since coming to live in Erith. ‘Why, yes . . . of course . . .’ he stuttered. ‘It would be lovely to see her enjoying herself. Shall we say three o’clock? And I’ll collect you both from Ruby’s?’
‘That would be wonderful and thank you, Mike, for thinking of us both,’ she smiled as he turned away and walked straight into a group of women chatting at a counter.
‘Someone’s more than a little attracted to you,’ Sarah said as Gwyneth stepped behind the Christmas goods counter and started to sort through a box of Christmas cards that were to go on display. Even though there was a war on Woolworths were fortunate to be able to bring a little cheer to their customers, as an agreement with Lord Beaverbrook meant there was a supply of paper to print books, cards and other goods to brighten everyone’s days.
Christmas at Woolworths Page 27
