The Docklands Girls

by June Tate

  She had placed advertisements in local papers, in Southampton’s Evening Echo and holiday magazines, announcing her opening at Easter and to her delight, she had already received bookings.

  The local shopkeepers were now getting to know her and, with her outgoing nature, she’d achieved a certain camaraderie with them. The local butcher in particular had taken a shine to her and would occasionally slip her a bit of extra meat, which bode well for the future when she had guests. In return she would take him some eggs.

  Cora would sometimes spend a weekend with her. After the busy city, the Isle of Wight was like a haven and she loved walking on the beach and, after their walk, finding a local pub and having a few drinks.

  The pace was slower, the surroundings picturesque and Cora was beginning to find that London no longer held any excitement for her. She said as much to Belle one evening when they were at home having a quiet meal.

  ‘Do you think I could find a job on the island, Belle?’

  Her friend looked at her with surprise. ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh I don’t know. It’s so peaceful here. Frankly, I’m sick of the rush in London. Travelling each day by Underground, all the pushing and shoving in the mornings and at rush hour after a day’s work. I get home and I’m exhausted.’ She’d been shopping with Belle and enjoyed the chat with the shopkeepers. ‘I don’t really know anyone outside of work,’ she continued and let out a deep sigh. ‘Since splitting with Simon, I’ve pretty much kept myself to myself. A city can be a lonely place, Belle.’

  Belle looked at her thoughtfully, she was fond of young Cora. They’d been through so much together and she, too, often felt lonely by herself in the evenings.

  ‘Why don’t you come and help me run the B & B? You could share my room. I could just about move another single bed in which would be a bit of a squeeze, but you could use one of the other rooms when it was free. I could do with a helping hand.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly do that,’ Cora said.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because you don’t know if you’ll have enough business coming in.’

  Belle laughed loudly. ‘Oh ye of little faith! I’m already fully booked for Easter and I expect to do well in the summer. I thought I’d do afternoon teas too, outside in the garden if the weather is fine enough, if not, inside in the dining room. There are a lot of day trippers who come here. I can’t manage that alone, I’d have to hire help. I can pay you a small wage and all your meals to start with and when we’re busy and established, I’ll pay you more.’

  Cora started to smile. ‘Oh, Belle! Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. You will have to help with the cleaning, the cooking, the serving and the garden too. So you see love, you’d really be doing me a favour. What do you say?’

  Cora jumped to her feet, rushed over to her friend, flung her arms around her and kissed her cheek. ‘I say yes, of course!’

  So it was settled. Cora would hand in a week’s notice, pack her stuff and move in. They drank to their new arrangement. It worked for both of them. Belle had been concerned about managing if she was fully booked and now that was no longer a problem. She and Cora worked well together and shared a great affection for one another and so work would no longer be a chore, shared as it would be by two very close friends.

  Cora’s boss, Linda, was sorry to see her go, but when she heard her future plans she was delighted for her. ‘If you find you don’t like it there and it’s too quiet for you, you can always come back, you know.’

  Cora thanked her. ‘That’s really kind of you. I’ve enjoyed working with you and if you need a holiday, you know where to come,’ she said with a grin.

  The next two days were spent packing and cleaning the bedsit ready for the next occupant. When she’d given her notice to the rent man, she asked, ‘Will the landlord soon find another occupant, do you think?’

  ‘No idea, miss. As far as I know, the room will be advertised in a newspaper.’

  She wondered who would be living in her bedsit next. She’d enjoyed her time there, she mused, as she finally packed her bag, called a cab and was taken to the train station. She was off to start another new life!

  It was now Good Friday and on the Isle of Wight, Belle and Cora were preparing breakfast for their residents who had arrived the night before. Two couples, one with a small child who slept in a small cot that Belle had purchased for such an occasion.

  The women had been busy, making soda bread as an alternative to the dreadful National loaf, plucking a chicken which Belle had killed, much to Cora’s horror.

  ‘I can’t watch,’ she’d said as Belle prepared to wring the chicken’s neck and had fled into the house. But she was quite happy to sit and pluck it. They’d bought some fish from the local fisherman to serve for dinner on Friday evening and with the extra ration books, they’d be able to buy extra butter, bacon and meat.

  Both were good cooks. They saved the fresh eggs for breakfast and used the powdered eggs to make scones and a cake. The vegetable patch had supplied most of their needs. They were both thrilled to have a good start to the business.

  After breakfast when their guests had vacated their rooms, they washed up the breakfast dishes, made the beds, cleaned the rooms and eventually sat down to a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge. Both were pleased with themselves.

  ‘Do you think they were satisfied with the breakfast?’ asked Belle with a worried frown.

  ‘They were delighted!’ Cora assured her. ‘Both couples are nice; I don’t see them being any trouble. Besides, why would they complain? The house is lovely, the beds comfortable and the food is good.’ She poured another cup of tea. ‘Relax, love, we’re doing just fine.’

  Belle started to chuckle. ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? You and me, running a business. Bloody sight better than having to lay on our backs to earn a crust.’ She looked at her friend. ‘Do you ever think of those days?’

  ‘No, never! I’ve locked every one of those days and nights away in a box never to be opened. That’s my past; all I want to think about is my future.’

  ‘Well, I do sometimes. It wasn’t all bad. I met some nice blokes, most of them just scared of what lay ahead for them. Poor buggers, wondering if they’d come back alive or injured. Then, of course, I met Jackson. He was special. I’m really happy that he came out alive and now seems to have a good life. The rest I don’t want to think about. However, love, let’s remember, those days paid for our future and don’t you forget that.’

  ‘How could I? Without being on the streets, I would never have survived and look at us now.’

  ‘Well,’ said Belle with a grin, ‘if we don’t have enough customers in the summer, we could always open a brothel!’ She doubled up with laughter.

  ‘Belle! Don’t even think of it,’ Cora gasped, then she too started laughing.

  As they only offered half board, they spent the rest of the morning finishing their chores and preparing the evening meal, then went for a stroll along the beach, breathing in the smell of seaweed and salt air. They sat in a beach cafe drinking tea and planning for the summer.

  ‘I’ve advertised year round accommodation,’ Belle told her friend, ‘but I imagine from May onwards people will start booking, hopefully. July, August and September should be our busiest months, but if we’re not booked up, serving afternoon teas will help with the shortfall.’

  Cora cast an admiring glance in Belle’s direction. ‘I had no idea that you had such a good business brain.’

  ‘Oh I’ve also had business cards printed and have put them in all the paper shops, you know in the window with all the adverts – and in Cowes. It’s a favourite holiday place and hopefully if the B & Bs and hotels get booked up, we may pick up a few strays there, especially during the Cowes Regatta, which starts on the first Saturday in August, I believe. We might do well serving teas then. Loads of people come over to watch that and then they may decide to venture further.’

  ‘Well, only time will tell,’ sai
d Cora as she went to pay the bill.

  Belle’s guests had left fully satisfied with their stay and, after cleaning the rooms and remaking the beds, she and Cora sat down with a cup of tea to read the latest news from Hildy. They’d received several postcards from her after her arrival in New York and her consequent move to a military base in Kentucky, now she’d written a letter.

  Hello girls,

  Sorry it’s taken so long to write, hope you received my postcards, but as you can imagine, everything has been chaotic since my arrival. New York was fantastic and the shopping incredible! Milt really spoilt me. I have a whole new wardrobe of clothes, which is just as well as the other army wives would not have appreciated my utility English ones.

  We are now living at the army base at Fort Knox. When Milt told me where we were headed, it reminded me of old cowboy films and I keep expecting John Wayne to ride in! It’s not at all like that, of course. We live on the base in a housing estate set up for army families. I’ve met lots of the army wives. Most of them are friendly and being a GI bride makes me something of a novelty, which can be both enjoyable – and irritating. I sometimes feel like a specimen in a bottle! However, soon I hope to blend into the background when the curiosity wears off.

  Milt is a great husband. He’s such a strong character and I imagine as a sergeant he can be pretty strict, but the men seem to respect him for it. He’s so kind to me and I know I made the right choice. He has been thinking about leaving the army and setting up his own business, but the army has been his life and he’s so good at what he does, I wonder if he’d be happy. But no decision has been made as yet.

  Life in America is so different and takes some getting used to. We are supposed to speak the same language as the Yanks, well don’t you believe it, because we do not. But I’m learning. The yard is the garden. The pavement is a sidewalk, a lift is an elevator and a tap is a faucet. I know! Crazy, isn’t it?

  I’m not homesick because I’m so happy with this lovely man, but, of course, I miss my friends like you two. Glad to know you are in the B & B business and in such a lovely place too. Maybe if you make a bundle of money sometime in the future, you could come and visit me. That would be great, so save your pennies.

  Take care and I’ll write again soon.

  Love,

  Hildy

  Belle put the letter down and smiled. ‘Thank goodness everything seems to have worked out for her, after all. We must write back to her, let her know she’s not forgotten. She took a chance sailing off to another country with a man she really didn’t know well.’

  ‘Yes, that is a relief,’ Cora agreed. ‘You hear of such terrible tales of those who were promised the earth to find it had all been a pack of lies.’

  ‘Let’s face it, you don’t have to leave these shores to find that out. Men can do that anywhere.’

  ‘Would you marry again, Belle?’

  ‘No, love. Now if I did meet a bloke I liked, I would live with him, but that would be enough, then I could chuck him out if he didn’t live up to my expectations.’ She stood up and said, ‘Let’s go for a walk along the beach. We’ve earned a break.’

  The two of them would not have been quite so happy about their friend Hildy had she written and told them the whole truth about her induction to army life.

  On her arrival in New York, Hildy had been thrilled to be with Milt again and they’d had a great few days in the vibrant city on their delayed honeymoon. She’d been fascinated by all the sights and the shops and was looking forward to setting up a home for the man she adored. But when they arrived at Milt’s army base in Kentucky, she found that things were different to how she imagined her married life and home would be.

  As was usual for army wives, they all lived in houses attached to the regiment in the grounds of the military base. There was a definite division among the ranks. The homes of the officer’s wives differed greatly from the ordinary ranks. The army set out classes and entertainment for the wives in an effort to stop them from being bored with army life and to try and keep them out of trouble. Boredom can lead to all manner of things, this the army had learnt over the years and the divorce rate was fairly high.

  Their house on the base was already furnished, which had been a disappointment to Hildy. She had looked forward to choosing the furniture for their first home together, as she thought the interior of the house was bland and characterless, but she kept such feelings to herself.

  The other wives gave her a welcome party two days after she arrived to try and make her at ease having left her country as a GI bride.

  As she had written to her friends, she did feel like a specimen in a bottle as she was questioned incessantly about her life back in, ‘the old country’. Although why they called it that she often wondered when they had nothing to do with Britain and appeared to know so little about it.

  They were unaware of the hardship the British people had suffered during the Blitz.

  The fact that everyone had clothing coupons they found incredible and as for ration books and the meagre amounts of food allowed to each person for a week, they could hardly believe.

  ‘Do you have television? Do you have beauty parlours? Do you know the Royal family? Do you have running water in your houses?’

  On being asked this final question, Hildy smiled at the questioner and said, ‘Good heavens, no. We have to wash in the sea. We are an island, you know, so we are never far away from any water.’ For a while some believed her.

  When she told Milt, he’d laughed but had warned her. ‘Be careful, honey, we Yanks don’t always understand the British sense of humour.’

  Once a month, in a strict rota, each wife gave afternoon tea to all the others who inevitably turned out to see how one wife could outdo another. Hildy refused to be drawn into this and when it was her turn, she gave them a traditional English tea with cucumber sandwiches, home-made scones with jam and cream and a Victoria sponge cake.

  The women were taken aback by its simplicity.

  ‘This is how we do it back home,’ she told them. ‘This is exactly what the King and Queen have for their tea.’

  For once they were impressed. Anything to do with Royalty or the aristocracy, seemed to impress them greatly, much to Hildy’s amusement. They loved the scones, then they asked where they could buy the package mix to make them.

  ‘They don’t come from any package,’ Hildy said and gave them the recipe for the scones and the Victoria sponge.

  She supposed she’d get used to this way of life in time, but she was restless. It didn’t take long to clean the house and do the laundry. So she bought a sewing machine and made new curtains and cushions to smarten up her house in an effort to make it her own.

  Some of the wives thought this was amusing. ‘You can buy all this stuff in the stores in town,’ they said, but Hildy just smiled and said, ‘I know, but I enjoy making my own and during the war we had to learn to make our own clothes.’

  They didn’t quite know what to make of this Englishwoman who’d arrived in their midst, but this didn’t deter the indomitable Hildy. She just sat and wondered how these American women would have coped in similar situations if they had been bombed as she had been in Southampton and many other cities back home. She came to the conclusion that if their favourite beauty parlour had been decimated there would have been many who would not have survived. She chuckled at the very idea.

  Back in Shanklin, Belle’s happy existence took a nose dive after a visit to her local butcher. As he was wrapping her purchase, a man came out of the back of the shop and stared at her.

  ‘This is my brother, Kev,’ said Tom the butcher. ‘He’s been demobbed and is going to be working for me. This is Belle, my favourite customer,’ he said.

  Belle frowned as she looked at the stranger. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘Good morning to you,’ he answered, with a sly grin. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  Carrying her shopping home, B
elle wracked her brains trying to place the man, but she couldn’t and carried on with her daily chores.

  Later that afternoon when Cora was at the hairdressers, there was a knock on the front door. On opening it, Belle was surprised to see Kev standing there.

  ‘Afternoon, Belle. You don’t remember me, do you?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

  He leant casually against the door frame. ‘I was in the army during the war and stationed in Southampton. I used to drink in the Horse and Groom.’

  Her heart seemed to miss a beat. ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t play coy with me, love. I was one of your clients. I went to your place a few times. Always came away satisfied.’ He leered at her.

  She became wary. ‘Why are you here, standing on my doorstep?’

  ‘I thought we could come to an arrangement, Belle. I’m sure you don’t want it known that the owner of the B & B down the road used to be a prostitute. It would make a great deal of difference to your business and your standing.’

  His arrogance made her angry and she wanted to slap him. She’d worked too hard to build her dream and she wasn’t going to let this apology for a man spoil that.

  ‘Arrangement? What arrangement?’

  ‘I could call on you, say, twice a week and you’d show me just how grateful you are for my silence.’

  She glared at him. ‘You bastard! You think you’re so very clever. Well, better men than you have tried to put me in a corner. Take your arrangement and shove it! You come bothering me again and you’ll be very sorry.’ She shut the door in his face. But her hands were trembling.

  When Cora arrived home, she could see that her friend was upset. ‘Belle, whatever is the matter?’