‘He must be nice to put that look in your eyes, Gracie,’ her mum was saying quietly now, and Gracie knew she had to pretend, if only to put a bit of sparkle back in her mother’s life.
‘He’s very nice. He plays the saxophone in a dance-band.’
‘Bless me!’ Queenie said. ‘Is that a respectable job?’
Gracie laughed. ‘Of course it is. He wears smart clothes, a bow tie and all, just like a real toff.’
And what her dad called co-respondent’s shoes, she could have added, but didn’t. There was nothing of the gigolo about Charlie Morrison. Not as far as she knew, anyway—and what she didn’t know, she would just have to invent for her mother’s sake.
‘Where did you meet him, Gracie? Was he in the band at the dance where there was that fire?’
There was obviously nothing wrong with her mother’s memory, and Gracie remembered that her dad had seen her picture in the newspaper, and that her mum would have seen it too. But the unwitting lead had given her something to tell her now, without bending all the truth.
‘Yes, and he was one of the lucky ones who got out safely, just like Dolly and me,’ she said, crossing her fingers and praying that it was true.
‘Didn’t he mind you coming back to Southampton?’ Queenie said, but Gracie recognized that her voice was becoming exhausted again.
‘The band has lots of engagements all over the place,’ she replied. ‘It’s what they do, Mum, and he’s always busy, so I didn’t ever expect to see him very often.’
‘But he’ll write to you, I daresay.’
‘I’ daresay, Gracie said, overcome with sudden misery.
Her mother was so quiet then that Gracie thought she had fallen asleep, and she crept back to the scullery to finish the washing-up in the congealing water. And then she heard the weak voice again.
‘If he’s as nice as you say, hold on to him, Gracie. A trustworthy man is hard to find.’
Gracie’s eyes welled up with tears again and she dashed them away angrily. A fat lot of use she was going to be to anybody if she fell apart from the first day. And inventing a pack of lies about Charlie hadn’t been her intention at all. Saying he was her young man … inventing his life for him—and for her … hearing his music in her dreams, that rich, mellow sound of his saxophone … dancing in his arms in her head, to the music, the music …
‘Gracie, I’m tired. I think I can sleep now.’
She jerked around as her mother’s voice came from the scullery door again, and she wiped her hands on a cloth quickly, before helping her up the stairs and into bed. At this rate the washing-up would never be done, but she didn’t care. There were times when other things were more important.
But later, on her own in the small parlour, with only the muted sound of the wireless for company in the background, she closed her own eyes, and thought what a difference a day could make.
This time yesterday she was still in London, still fancy-free, as they called it. Now she had duties that no daughter wanted to perform, even if they were duties that she did with unstinting love. But now she had time to think about Charlie. Unknowingly, her mother had brought him back into her consciousness again. Perhaps he had never really been away, but he had been as unlikely a dream as meeting one of the glamorous stars in her movie magazines. It all seemed so shallow now, compared with the enormity of what the family was facing.
But if filling her mother’s days with a few stories about Gracie’s dashing young man called Charlie was going to bring her pleasure, who was to say it was wrong? To Queenie, a saxophone player in a dance-band was just as unattainable as any movie star. And he was such a beautiful young man …
Before she knew it, Gracie was letting her thoughts drift towards the imaginary background she was creating for her mother’s benefit. Naturally, she had been properly introduced to Charlie, who came from a respectable family and had encouraged their son to follow his musical talents. His dream was to write songs and have them turned into sheet music for people to buy. One day they might even be performed on gramophone records, and he would be rich and famous. And Gracie would be right there alongside him.
The front door banged, and her father came stomping indoors, his head and clothes wet from a sudden rainstorm, his clothes unpleasant with the smell of damp wool. Uneasily, she saw that he looked none too pleased with himself. He’d wanted her to come home—had practically ordered her home—but they had never got along, and nothing seemed likely to change that now.
‘Now then, girl, make us some cocoa and then you and me are going to have a little talk.’
Her heart sank. She’d had enough little talks for one day, and any more soul-searching on her mother’s account was more than she could bear.
And although it was probably very wrong of her, she wanted to go to bed with thoughts of Charlie still vivid in her mind, and not the smell of her father’s beery breath in her nostrils.
‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow, Dad? You’re in no fit state for talking—’
‘Are you saying I’m drunk?’ he snapped.
‘Well, aren’t you? Look at you, hardly able to stand upright!’ Gracie snapped back, unable to hide her disgust as he leaned against the table for support.
‘Since when did a daughter speak to her father in such a way?’
‘When he gave her cause, that’s when.’
She stared at him fearlessly. Her months away in London let her see more clearly what a bully he was, if not physically, then always verbally. Always belittling everything she did, and sneering at her gentle mother. And the only way to deal with bullies was to face up to them, not flinch away from them.
‘You’ve changed, my girl,’ her father finally growled, slumping down in his chair. ‘I’m not sure I like what I see, but providing you do right by your mother, we’ll agree to keep our distance as much as possible.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ Gracie said, her head held high. ‘Now I’ll go and make you a strong cup of cocoa, and there’s something I want to talk to you about too.’
Take the initiative, she told herself. Don’t let him browbeat you. And get his agreement to her mother sleeping by herself in the downstairs front room, so she would get some much-needed peace and quiet in her last days.
‘Now then, Dad,’ she said a little later, dumping the two mugs of cocoa on the table in the parlour, and prepared to tackle him all night if need be.
And then she saw that he was fast asleep, snores roaring out of his slackly open mouth. She tiptoed out of the room, went upstairs and found a spare blanket and covered him lightly. Better that he should spend the night in a chair than wake the whole household.
* * *
Gracie knew she now had to get used to a new routine. The first few days were awkward. They all had to get to know one another again and, apart from doing the daily chores to relieve her mother as much as possible, at the first chance she went to see the family doctor.
He looked at her sympathetically. She was a lovely young girl, and as unlike her brute of a father as it was possible to be. But as he shuffled the papers on his desk, he knew she had a difficult time ahead of her.
‘So what exactly do you want to know, Gracie?’
She spread her hands, and swallowed the lump in her throat. He had been the family’s doctor ever since she was born, and she was attuned to his mood, and she could see that he didn’t want to tell her the worst.
‘What you can’t tell me, I suppose, Doctor Wilson. That this was all a mistake, and that my mother isn’t going to die.’
The breath caught in her throat, just saying the words.
‘You know I can’t tell you that, don’t you, my dear? There’s no mistake, and your mother has come to terms with it, and so must you. It’s the only way to make it easier for her. She won’t want to see gloomy faces for the last months of her life.’
‘How many?’ Gracie said, so abruptly that he looked startled for a moment. ‘Dad said six months, but I’ve seen the way she looks, and
it’s not going to be that long, is it?’
‘I could lie to you, Gracie—’
‘Please don’t. Please credit me with being able to deal with the truth.’
‘Then three months at most, maybe less. Her heart is weak as well, you see, and either condition could be the one to kill her. I’m sorry.’
‘Well, it’s not your fault, is it?’ she said in a brittle voice. She had asked for the truth, and she had got it. ‘I’m sure you’ll continue to do what you can for her, and whatever she needs, it’ll be paid for, Doctor, don’t worry about that. So I’d be obliged if you would come to see her regularly.’
‘Of course, if that’s what you wish, though it’s not strictly necessary.’
‘I think it is, if only for Mum’s peace of mind, and mine too. She needs to know that people care.’
Apart from my father, she might have added. The ironic thing was she knew he did care, in his own way. He just couldn’t show it. And he still expected his wife to always be there and to cater for him. A chattel, no less. And now he expected Gracie to be the same. She hardened her heart against him, thankful that at least she had got her way over her mother’s bed being brought downstairs to give her a bit of peace.
She left the doctor’s rooms with the need to breathe in fresh air and think. She wandered down to the docks where her father worked, loading and unloading the massive containers that came from all parts of the world. That was the business part of the docks. At another were the huge ocean-going liners, taking the rich and famous to places Gracie had hardly heard about—the glamorous places—taking glamorous people to continue their lives of luxury and pleasure.
Gracie gave a sigh. There was no doubting that when she first went to London there had been such anticipation in her veins. Not that she was going to meet and fall in love with somebody really famous, to be swept off her feet like some beautiful Hollywood film star and live happily ever after … she was sensible enough to know that life wasn’t always like that. Not always. But it could be, for some, and why not her? She had dreams, the same as everybody else.
But now, she was back here where she belonged. It was just as if fate had decided that Gracie Brown had had enough of living in London, as free as a bird, dancing with handsome young men, and being independent in a way no nineteen-year-old girl had a right to be. And it was time she came home and settled down.
‘Look out, gel, or you’re going to get hurt,’ she heard a voice say irritably, and she stepped aside hurriedly as a man pushing a trolley-load of barrels on wooden rollers hurtled past. The smell of beer told her what was in the barrels, reminding her of her father.
She didn’t know which part of the docks he worked at, but she didn’t want to see him when her heart was full of all the doctor had told her. It was one shock on top of another. Not only did her mother have a growth, but she had a bad heart as well, and if one condition didn’t kill her soon enough, the other one would.
She was hardly aware of where she was walking, and when she stumbled on the uneven cobbles she would have fallen if someone hadn’t steadied her, and for a minute she thought she was going to be told off again.
‘Gawd Almighty, if you ain’t a sight for sore eyes, Gracie Brown! I thought you’d gone up in the world since you’d gone up to London, and we were never going to see you again!’
As she looked up into the cheerful face of the young man with the whiff of the sea about him, she gave a small smile of recognition, and the hollow that was her stomach momentarily settled down again.
‘I could say the same about you, Davey Watkins. Last time I heard anything about you, you’d run off to sea.’
He laughed. ‘I didn’t exactly run off, gel, though I did join the Navy to see the sea, as you might say, just like my old dad. And now I’m home on shore leave, and all the better for seeing you—and all grown up and all. So what happened to you? Got tired of the high life, did you?’
‘Hardly,’ she said, and then her face crumpled.
She’d known Davey all her life, when he was a snotty-nosed schoolkid in short trousers with his socks always half-way down his legs, and his hair an unruly ginger thatch. She acknowledged that he didn’t look in the least like that now, and he was looking at her appraisingly too.
‘Blimey, Gracie, by the looks of things, it’s tea and confession time, so let’s go to a caff and you can tell me all about it.’
‘I don’t know if I want to do any such thing,’ she muttered.
She didn’t know if she should, either. It was personal business. Family business. And you didn’t go telling all and sundry your family business, except to old mates who could be trusted. But he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
In the steamy atmosphere of the dockside caff he went to the counter and ordered two cups of thick sweet tea. Once he had brought them to the table, he sat back with his arms folded. Real brawny sailor’s arms they were now, Gracie noted, and not those of the weedy little kid she remembered.
‘Come on then, Gracie, tell Uncle Dave what it’s all about. I don’t get to hear too much gossip these days. Is it hatches, matches or dispatches?’
At his teasing words, she looked at him mutely, and to give her a moment’s breathing space she took a gulp of tea that burned her mouth.
At least, she hoped he would think that was the reason for the sudden shine of tears in her eyes.
Noting it, he spoke casually. ‘So how’s your old man these days? Still swilling the beer, I bet. Remember how we used to hang around outside the pubs of a night, hoping that when any of the old lushes came staggering out, they’d give us a few coppers for some pork scratchings?’
Gracie grinned. She had forgotten such things, but just for a moment she was caught up in a surge of nostalgia. They’d just been kids, the whole unruly gang of them, but they had hung together around the dockside pubs, and there was no fear, no danger, until they were sent off home with the landlord threatening to tell their dads. And them yelling back that their dads were drunker than any of them, and wouldn’t remember a thing in the morning.
‘Is it something to do with your dad, Gracie?’ Davey asked quietly, more perceptive than she thought. But obviously not perceptive enough.
‘It’s Mum,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’ve come home because she’s going to die.’
5
‘You don’t mean it!’ Davey said, then added quickly, ‘but of course you do. Nobody would make up a thing like that. Blimey, Gracie, that’s a real turn up. Poor old Queenie. So you’ve come home to look after her, have you?’
She nodded dumbly, wishing she hadn’t said anything. Once you put it into words it sounded more real. Once you told other people and saw the shock in their eyes it made it even worse.
‘Don’t start feeling sorry for me, Davey. Mum knows exactly what’s happening, and we just have to get on with it as best we can.’
‘What about your dad? From what I remember I bet he’s not behaving as well as you,’ Davey said sceptically.
‘We all have to deal with it in our own way.’
‘In other words, he’s still down at the boozer every night.’
Gracie bristled. It was all right for her to criticize her dad, but she didn’t need anyone else doing it and making her feel worse.
‘What if he is? It’s better than having him moping around the house, and he’ll be just as upset as I am when—when the time comes.’
She bit her lips hard, unable to say any more, wanting to get away from his sympathetic eyes.
‘Look, I really can’t stay any longer, Davey.’
‘I understand,’ he said at once. ‘You’ll want to get back home, won’t you?’
‘Not really.’ She hesitated, perverse as the wind. ‘Actually, I could do with a bit of cheering up, so how about a walk—or do you have other things to do?’
She felt herself redden, but she had known him since he was in short trousers, and she wasn’t trying to flirt with him. He could surely see that.
‘Nothing that won’t wait,’ he replied. ‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. We could take a look at the ocean liners and imagine we’re going somewhere exotic and far away,’ she said recklessly, willing her thoughts away from her mum’s ordeal for the moment. ‘I bet you’ve seen plenty of exotic places in the Navy, haven’t you?’
He laughed as they went outside the caff. ‘Hardly. Being in the Navy’s no joy-ride when you’re working in the bowels of the ship in the sweltering heat of the engine-room. You don’t even see the sea until you’re in port.’
‘It sounds horrible,’ Gracie said. ‘Why do it if you don’t like it?’
‘I didn’t say I don’t like it. Just that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, but it beats sticking around here. You got away as soon as you could, didn’t you?’
‘And now I’m back.’ Which said it all.
They walked in companionable silence until they reached the terminal where the ocean liners berthed. There was little activity there now, just one ship in port, awaiting its complement of wealthy passengers. They watched the comings and goings of the ship’s company preparing for their next voyage.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ Davey said casually.
She was tempted to spin the same yarn she had told her mother, about the saxophone player called Charlie Morrison. But what was the point? She kept her gaze fixed on the elegant ship as she spoke.
‘I did meet someone in London a little while ago, but I doubt that I’ll ever meet him again. It’s all water under the bridge now, anyway.’
‘Hell’s bells, Gracie Brown, I never knew you to be so mournful—and I know you’ve got a lot to be mournful about right now, with your mum being ill and all—but at school everybody called you a right little ray of sunshine.’
‘You don’t remember any such thing,’ she said with a laugh and a catch in her throat, ‘and you’re only saying it to make me feel better.’
‘Is it working?’
After a moment she said, almost in surprise: ‘Yes, it is.’
Unforgettable Page 5
