The Girl on the Beach

by Mary Nichols

  They had just heard they were to be posted and were discussing it while they dressed to go to a Saturday night dance in Sleaford with a crowd from the station. They couldn’t dress up because they had to wear uniform, but they could give themselves a shampoo and set and take extra care with their make-up.

  ‘No idea. We’ll have to wait and see.’ Someone was sitting with his hand on a horn outside their barrack room; it could be heard all over the camp. ‘Come on, let’s go before he has the whole station down on him.’

  They picked up handbags and gas masks and dashed out to the truck which was to take them into Sleaford, and scrambled aboard to join two more girls and four airmen.

  ‘Last time for this,’ Florrie said. ‘Eve and I are being posted.’

  ‘Where to?’ Matt Cotton asked. He was driving and didn’t seem bothered about the truck’s springs or his passengers’ comfort as they bounced along the uneven ground to the main gate.

  ‘Don’t know yet. I only heard through the grapevine.’

  ‘We’ll miss you and your cheeky voice.’ He paused and laughed. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Yeah, and we’ll miss you, you crazy idiot. Why don’t you slow down a bit before we’re all thrown out?’

  ‘Florrie, you shouldn’t call him names,’ Julie said, though she was hanging onto her seat.

  Florrie laughed. ‘He knows I don’t mean it. He knows I love him to bits, don’t you, Matt?’

  ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ the young man said laconically.

  They continued to tease each other all the way into Sleaford, but Julie noticed when they arrived at the dance hall that Florrie danced with Matt most of the time, while she and the other girls shared their favours with the other three. Was Florrie serious about him? After all they had said about not falling in love, had she done just that? It left Julie wondering how it might affect their friendship and then scolded herself for begrudging Florrie a little happiness. It wasn’t Florrie’s fault that she couldn’t follow suit. Had she ever been in love? Had she loved her child’s father? Was he dead or alive? Would she still love him if her memory returned? Perhaps she hadn’t loved him in the first place, perhaps they had simply been ships that passed in the night. She did not want to believe she was really as flighty as that. Her self-questioning led her nowhere, which just went to prove she would never be able to let it rest.

  The notice went up on Sunday evening and it was the parting of the ways. Florrie was going to Manston in Kent and Julie, now promoted to corporal, to Ringway near Manchester. Their parting was mournful but they promised to write often and try and get home together sometimes. Alec had been as good as his word and joined the army and was stationed at Bulford. It was unlikely all three would be together for some time, but it could not be helped and she looked forward to his long chatty letters.

  Ringway, Julie discovered almost as soon as she arrived, was a parachute training school and many of the men were in khaki and not air force blue. They were supremely fit. She would see them running round the station perimeter with big packs on their backs, or practising their jumps from the tower in one of the hangars, or they might be marching out to the Whitleys and taking off. Later the aircraft would return without them and they would come back in trucks. As soon as one group had completed their training and their requisite eight jumps and left, another lot appeared. Some who failed the stringent tests for one reason or another were returned to their units. They came and they went and she didn’t get to know any of them, though their RAF instructors remained. She would chat to them when they came into the stores with a chit for this or that or to collect parachutes. Packing the parachutes was done in a hangar by WAAF personnel. It was meticulous work, every stage of which was inspected and passed before going on to the next.

  Occasionally a parachute failed to open, resulting in a fatality, and though no one blamed the packers, they felt the loss keenly and were miserable for hours afterwards, but then they pulled themselves together and went back to work. You had to do that, you had to put the horrors behind you, whether it be an unopened parachute, a bomber not returning from a raid, or being bombed yourself. You had to become hardened, at least on the outside.

  The news that Florrie was going to marry Matt did not come as a complete surprise, though what was surprising was that the wedding was going to be so soon. ‘You must try and get leave,’ she wrote to Julie. ‘I’m being married from home and I want you to be a bridesmaid.’

  Dates were bandied back and forth in increasing panic, but at last one was chosen which everyone could make and Julie travelled down to Wiltshire by train the day before. It was a damp windy day in March, but Alec was waiting for her at Andover Station with his father’s car. He kissed her cheek and took her small case from her. ‘Glad you could make it.’

  ‘So am I. I should have been miserable if I’d had to miss it.’

  ‘It’s pandemonium at home, what with all the preparations. Mum’s determined it’s going to be a grand day, war or no war.’

  This proved to be true. The farmhouse was warm, made even warmer by the kitchen range, which had been on the go all day, making sausage rolls and cakes, cooking chicken and pork. ‘Goodness,’ Julie said after she had been kissed and hugged by everyone, including Liz and Alice. ‘You’d never believe there was rationing.’

  ‘You don’t know what you can do until you try,’ Maggie said. ‘We killed a pig a week or two ago and the chickens yesterday.’

  ‘Come upstairs,’ Florrie said, dragging Julie behind her. ‘I want to make sure your dress fits.’

  Julie sat on her bed and watched as Florrie brought out a rose-coloured pink silk dress. ‘I was going to have blue,’ she said. ‘But you’re in blue every day so I thought pink would be more feminine.’

  ‘Yes, it is, and it’s beautiful.’

  ‘Try it on. Mum made it. She took the measurements from that flowered dress you left behind in the wardrobe.’

  ‘Where on earth did she get the material?’

  Florrie laughed. ‘Don’t you recognise it? It’s parachute silk. Best not to ask where she got it from. She dyed it in the copper. It’s come up all right, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, beautiful.’ She stripped off her uniform and slid the dress over her head. ‘It’s grand,’ she said, smoothing it down over her hips. ‘I must pay you for it.’

  ‘You will not. Whatever next. You’re family, Eve.’

  Whenever Florrie said something like that, it made her want to cry with love and gratitude. She could not even begin to imagine what life would be like without the Kilbys. It made that great void in her life bearable. She was slowly coming to the conclusion that her memory was not going to come back and she had better settle down living the life she had. She had so much to be thankful for: her good health, her work which she enjoyed, her dear friends, what more could she ask?

  She took the dress off and replaced it on its hanger. ‘Show me your dress.’

  Florrie took it from another wardrobe. It was in shimmering white satin. ‘It’s a make-over from Mum’s,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Put it on.’ She watched as Florrie did as she was asked. ‘It’s gorgeous. Matt will be bowled over.’

  ‘He’d better be.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Staying with his best man at the Three Bells. Can’t have him here the night before the wedding, can we? I think Dad and Alec are going to meet them there later tonight for a stag party. I hope they don’t get too drunk.’

  ‘Your dad will see that they don’t.’ Julie paused. ‘Are you sure about this, Florrie? We always said we wouldn’t fall in love while there’s a war on.’

  ‘I know what we said, but that was a silly thing to say. Falling in love is not something you can control, is it? I want to be with Matt ’til death us do part, however long or short that is, and I can’t wait.’

  ‘But you won’t be with him, will you? He has to go back to Coningsby and you back to Manston. The war w
on’t stop just because you’ve got married.’

  ‘I know, but we’ll try and wangle leave together, and you never know, we might end up on the same station.’

  Florrie was so exuberant and optimistic, Julie let that go. ‘Then let’s hope you do.’ She had dressed in a civilian skirt and jumper while they had been talking. ‘We’d better go down. I heard your mother call she was dishing up.’

  Supper was a noisy affair with everyone competing to be heard, and afterwards, while the women washed up, Walter and Alec set off for the pub. ‘We’ll have a little drink ourselves,’ Maggie said as they finished, stacking the crockery away. ‘And then it’s an early night for you two.’

  ‘Mum, I’m too excited to sleep,’ Florrie said.

  ‘Never mind, you’ll be resting.’

  A watery sun was shining next morning, which everyone said was a favourable sign. Neither Florrie nor Julie could eat any breakfast, and after drinking innumerable cups of tea, Julie had a bath and then dressed while Florrie had hers. Maggie was busy dressing Liz and Alice who were also to be bridesmaids. She sat them in the front parlour to do a jigsaw puzzle and stay out of mischief while she went to help Florrie dress.

  ‘I feel a bit sick,’ Florrie said as she was helped into her dress. ‘I keep wondering if Matt will be there.’

  ‘Of course he’ll be there. Don’t be so silly.’

  Florrie was a bag of nerves by the time she was dressed and her headdress and veil put on her curls; it took a glass of sherry to calm her. The bridal car arrived for Maggie, Julie and the two girls and they set off for the church, leaving Walter and Florrie to follow in the pony and trap. The pony had been groomed within an inch of its life and the trap was bedecked with white ribbons.

  The Kilbys were popular in the village and the church was full of well-wishers, friends, neighbours, relations, farm workers, including the two land girls. Matt and his best man, both in uniform, stood at the altar as the bridal procession entered the church. Florrie gave a huge smile of relief and was rewarded with a broad smile from her bridegroom.

  Julie, standing behind Florrie, was happy for her friend, but it was tinged with a little personal sadness at the fact that this meant her relationship with Florrie would inevitably change. They would still be good friends, but Matt would be first in Florrie’s life from now on, which was as it should be. If only she did not have that cloud hanging over her, she might find someone to love and who loved her. While she was busy on the station, she could put the problem of her memory to one side, but now it niggled in her head again. The same unanswerable questions over and over again. She thrust them from her, determined to enjoy the party, toast Matt and Florrie in home-made elderberry wine and watch them cut the cake. Icing was forbidden, so it was a sponge cake filled with jam and cream – eggs and cream being easier to come by on the farm than dried fruit. Afterwards she waved the couple off on their five-day honeymoon with a big smile on her face.

  After the guests had gone home, leaving a sense of anticlimax in the farmhouse, Julie helped Maggie and Alec clear up while Walter went out to see to the animals. ‘I hope things go well for them,’ Maggie said. ‘Life is so uncertain nowadays.’

  ‘All the more reason to seize what happiness you can, while you can,’ Alec told her. ‘Don’t you agree, Eve?’

  Julie came out of her brown study to answer him. ‘You may be right.’

  ‘I don’t have to be back until midnight tomorrow, how about you?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Then let’s have a good long ride tomorrow morning. The horses could do with some exercise. Now I’m not living at home, they’re getting fat and lazy.’

  ‘You’re on,’ she said.

  Alec knew, without a shadow of doubt, that Eve was the girl for him, had known it almost from her first visit to the farm, but he was finding it difficult to get close to her. Her pale good looks, her slight figure, her quietness all attracted him. She had a kind of feyness, an other-worldliness which intrigued him. Florrie had told him about her being bombed out in the Blitz and being the only survivor in her family and she didn’t like to talk about it. Even Florrie did not know how many of her family had perished, whether she had had brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents. All she knew was that Eve was alone in the world and putting a brave face on it. He wanted more than anything to try and repair the damage, to make her see that she was not alone, that there were people who cared for her and loved her.

  It wasn’t that she was miserable, far from it; she enjoyed a joke with the best of them, loved dancing, and cried when the film they went to see was sad, laughed when it was funny. She let him kiss her chastely on the cheek but had not encouraged any closer intimacy. He wondered why; she could not be unaware of how he felt for her. Tomorrow, while they were out, he would try to draw her out, get her to talk. Talking might lay the ghosts.

  In that he failed. She would not be drawn. They had been riding for two hours when they stopped to dismount and rest the horses. He took her hand; she allowed that. He kissed her cheek; she allowed that. Encouraged, he took her in his arms. ‘Eve,’ he said. ‘You do know how I feel about you, don’t you?’

  ‘No, Alec, please.’ She struggled away from him.

  ‘No you don’t know, or you don’t want me to talk about it?’

  ‘I don’t want you to talk about it. You’ll spoil everything if you do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re all right as we are, good friends.’

  ‘Friends be damned. I want more than that. I love you. I knew it the moment I saw you. It was like being struck by lightning.’

  She managed a smile. ‘Have you ever been struck by lightning?’

  ‘No, but I know what it can do. I hoped you might feel the same.’

  ‘I don’t know what I feel. It’s too soon.’

  ‘Too soon, how can you say that? We’ve known each other over two years. You’ve come to the house, called it home …’

  ‘Perhaps that was presumptuous of me. Your mother said—’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Eve, I didn’t mean that. We love having you, all of us, me particularly. I just thought it meant you might return my feelings.’

  She stood up. ‘Alec, leave it please. You’ll spoil everything if you keep on.’

  ‘Very well.’ Disappointed, dismayed and hurt, he helped her mount, remounted himself and they rode back to the farm in silence, and that afternoon they caught separate trains and went their separate ways.

  ‘God I’m nervous. This is worse than going on an op.’

  ‘Remind me not to do it, then,’ Tim said, watching his friend fiddling with his tie. He tied that tie every day of his life, so what was so difficult about fixing it today? It wasn’t going to be a silk-cravat-and-morning-suit sort of do; most of the men would be in uniform. ‘Anyway, you’ve done it before.’

  ‘I know, but that was different.’

  ‘How different?’

  ‘We weren’t much more than kids, Julie in particular. She had been brought up in an orphanage and that made her kind of young and old at the same time, an innocent in some ways, wise beyond her years in others, but it made her vulnerable. And there was this chap who was pestering her …’

  ‘You mean you just felt sorry for her?’

  ‘No, I don’t. There was more to it than that. We were happy as sandboys. It was a great adventure, getting married and having our own home and a baby. He was a grand little chap …’

  ‘Hey, this is your wedding day. Don’t dwell on it.’

  ‘I’m not. You asked and I was only pointing out that this time it’s different. Pam is more mature; she knows what she wants …’

  ‘And that’s you.’

  ‘Yes, and I want her too. I wouldn’t be marrying her otherwise.’ After six months of courtship, in which their love had grown stronger and more enduring, they had decided not to wait until the war was over to get married. Life was so uncertain and Pam wanted to seize what happiness was theirs while
they could and, though he doubted the wisdom of it, he felt the same. Being married again was a statement of optimism in the future.

  ‘Good. Now we’ve got that out of the way, put your jacket on, it’s time we were on the way to church. You can’t have the bride turning up before we do.’

  Harry followed Tim out to the car, an open-top two-seater, though the hood was up against the cold March wind. Where his friend had found it, and how he had managed to get petrol for it, he did not know and thought it better not to ask, but it was Harry’s and Pam’s for the next five days. Tim drove him to the church.

  They were met at the door by Jane Godwin with a tray of buttonholes: a carnation and a spray of fern wrapped round with silver paper. ‘You’re in good time,’ she said. ‘Pam won’t be long. Last minute nerves, you know …’

  ‘She’s not changed her mind, has she?’ Harry asked in alarm.

  ‘Good Lord, no. She had you marked out from the first, Harry me lad, the last thing she’ll do is back out. She just wants to look her best for you.’ She paused to look into his face. ‘You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Good.’

  Tim took one of the flowers and fastened it on Harry’s uniform jacket, did the same for himself, then they made their way into the church and down the aisle to the pew at the front.

  Harry was conscious that the church was full on both sides. ‘I didn’t think there’d be so many here,’ he whispered to Tim.

  ‘Why not? Very popular couple, you are. There’s Pam’s relatives and yours and as many as could make it from the station, including some of the Yanks we’ve got to know, half the Women’s Land Army, all the pub regulars, not to mention anyone who has ever bought Godwin’s bread.’

  Harry turned to look behind him. His mother and father, Roly and Millie and her husband in a captain’s khaki uniform were all there. He grinned at them.

  ‘Good luck, son.’ his father said.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ Millie asked.

  ‘A bit.’