Secrets of the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  The kitchen was still warm from the heat of the Aga and after tottering into the larder for a bottle of tonic, Miriam sat herself down on the bench that ran alongside the long wooden table, and drank her gin.

  Well, Miriam, she congratulated herself, you’re doing a pretty good job, even if I say so myself.

  She raised the glass to herself and took another drink.

  Let’s just hope to God Jack doesn’t ever get his memory back.

  As Miriam sat and sipped her drink, she mulled over the past week since Jack had been discharged from hospital. She had worked hard, had carried out her plan with almost military precision. Photographs had been placed around the house of the two of them together, which had been no easy task – she’d struggled to find any recent ones. She’d also put a picture of them both on the desk in his office after going in there the other week and finding not a single one of her. She’d been livid.

  Still, she couldn’t get too angry as everything was going to plan rather perfectly – all things considered. Especially as just a few weeks ago she was looking at the very real prospect of becoming a widow or, worse still, the wife of a handicapped husband.

  Miriam took another sip, savouring the slightly bitter flavour of the gin and tonic.

  As things had turned out, she actually couldn’t have wished for a better scenario. She’d been given a blank canvas on which she could draw whatever picture she desired. She could create the perfect husband and enjoy the perfect marriage.

  At long last she was going to get what she wanted. The husband she had always wanted. The life she had always wanted.

  She could reclaim her dream. The one she’d had all those years ago. This time she could make him into the husband she had always wanted; the one he had refused to be.

  Over the years she had thought of divorcing Jack and finding herself another, more suitable husband – one that went to dinner parties with her, one that actually liked her, never mind loved her; but she knew she couldn’t bring that kind of shame on herself, never mind her family. She had rebelled enough by marrying Jack in the first place. The last thing she needed was any ‘I told you so’s, or ‘that’s what happens when you marry below yourself’. Words that would never be said to her face, but that she knew would be said behind her back.

  Now she had her second shot at having the husband she had always wanted and she wasn’t about to blow it.

  She just had to make sure no one rocked the boat and – more than anything – that no one jogged his memory and in doing so brought the old Jack back.

  It had worried her when they were at the yard today that their visit might trigger thoughts from the past, especially when he’d met Rosie and her women welders, and, of course, Gloria. Thankfully, judging by the blank look on his face, there hadn’t been even a flicker of recognition. And the longer he didn’t remember anything, according to what the doctor had said, the more likely it was that he would never get his memory back.

  Miriam continued her musings as she wandered into the dining room and opened up the drinks cabinet. Finding a half-empty bottle of gin, she uncapped it and poured herself another measure.

  ‘My problem now,’ she ruminated, ‘is how to keep Jack out of the yard.’

  This was going to prove difficult because Jack’s bosses had made it clear that he could come back to work whenever he felt ready, and they would accommodate his needs. In their eyes Jack was a hero. He had risked travelling all the way to America in the middle of a world war, spent months teaching the Yanks how best to produce this new ship – and in doing so established the reputation of the Thompson yard as one of the best in the world.

  As she finished off her drink, a thought suddenly jumped into her head.

  ‘Those bloody Liberty ships may well end up doing me a favour,’ Miriam said aloud to the room.

  The new ships had raised Jack’s reputation in the whole of the shipyard community, never mind just at Thompson’s. Any of the yards would welcome him with open arms.

  She felt a rush of excitement as her idea started to take shape. Hadn’t she recently heard a whisper that Cyril Thompson was contemplating buying Jackie Crown’s shipyard?

  Miriam stood up, a little unsteadily as the gin had more than hit its mark, and teetered over to the phone at the far end of the room.

  A leather-bound address book was lying next to the black Bakelite phone, but she didn’t need it. She knew the number she needed to call.

  Miriam dialled and waited for the person at the other end to pick up. It had just gone ten o’clock.

  After several rings she heard a click on the slightly crackling line and then the sound of a familiar voice.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ Miriam said softly, ‘… sorry to call so late, but there’s something I need to chat to you about.’

  There was a pause while Miriam listened to her aged father, who had started waffling down the phone about something she had no interest in. Miriam continued to listen as he asked her how Jack was doing. Her father had been a hard-nosed businessman in his time, but, unlike her mother, he had never tried to stop her marrying Jack.

  ‘Yes,’ Miriam answered his question, ‘Jack’s doing very well. Better than expected, actually.’

  There was another pause, as yet more questions were asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Miriam said, trying to disguise her irritation. She was sick to the back teeth of people asking about Jack. ‘Yes, he’s putting the weight back on … looking more like his old self.’

  Her father started coughing and she impatiently tapped her manicured nails on the side table. When he had finally got his breath back, she got to the point of her phone call.

  ‘Father,’ she said gently, ‘I’ve got a favour to ask …’

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Ford Estate, Sunderland

  As Miriam quietly sneaked back into bed, four miles across the river on the south side Gloria was not only still wide awake, but also not far off becoming completely demented as she tried in vain to subdue a colicky Hope.

  From the moment she had bumped the pram up and over her front doorstep, her daughter had not stopped crying. It didn’t matter what Gloria did, nothing would soothe her baby. Hope’s cries had turned into screams and then the screams had become interspersed with bouts of coughing and snot. Her little girl’s face had become as red as a beetroot, and she had clenched her hands into fists so tightly that Gloria reckoned she wouldn’t have been able to prise them open even if she tried. Now Hope was arching her back as if trying some contortionist trick to free herself from her mother’s arms.

  Gloria had started to worry that there was something seriously wrong with her baby, and had considered taking Hope to the Royal, until she’d reminded herself that her eldest son had also been like this when he was just a few months old.

  Thoughts of the hospital, however, had brought images of Jack back into Gloria’s consciousness – how he had looked at her with blank, unknowing eyes as if she was a total stranger, and that, in turn, had brought another crushing wave of despair down on her.

  When Gloria had given Hope her name she really did have ‘hope’; now she felt like slapping herself. She had been living in cloud cuckoo land. Reality had come back to bite her on the backside – and had done so with a vengeance. Jack may have returned, but he was lost to her, as were all her dreams that they would be together and live a happy, loving life with their little girl. Today’s events at the yard had spelt it out to her in black and white: Jack was under the control of Miriam – like he always had been.

  When Gloria and Jack had started meeting up in secret, Jack had confided in her about his life with Miriam and how their marriage had been dead for many years. She had been shocked to the core when he had told her that later on in their marriage – when he had really got to know the true depths of his wife’s manipulative nature – he had become convinced she had faked her pregnancy. The look of sadness and regret in Jack’s eyes had been easy to read and neither of them had needed to say what t
hey’d both been thinking: if Miriam had not claimed to have been pregnant, Jack would have chosen to be with Gloria and their lives would have been very different.

  Now that Jack had no memory of his past life, Gloria was damn sure Miriam, true to form, would be moulding and shaping him into exactly the husband she wanted. Today had proved that to her beyond any kind of doubt. Just seeing the way Miriam had been with Jack, Gloria knew that she had been beaten yet again. Miriam had won. Just like she had when they had all been young and she had snatched the man she loved away from under her nose. And now, over twenty years later, she had done the same again. The only difference this time was that Miriam was unaware that she was taking Jack from her. As far as Miriam knew, Jack had not spoken to Gloria for years – never mind had a child with her.

  As Gloria started to shake Hope’s bottle of milk, the top suddenly came off and she unwittingly sprayed milk all around her little kitchen.

  ‘Oh no!’ Gloria’s cry of anger and frustration almost blotted out Hope’s wailing. The neighbour on her left started banging on the wall, and in temper Gloria banged the half-emptied bottle of milk down on the side.

  ‘Yer weren’t so quick to complain when I was having seven bells beaten out of me, were ya!’ Gloria shouted as she hammered on the kitchen wall with her fist so hard she thought she could see slight indentations in the plaster. The pain it caused her knuckles though was worth the sense of release the outburst had given her, but it also had the effect of draining her of all her energy and she grabbed the bottle of milk and traipsed into the living room with Hope still screaming and coughing in her ear.

  As an act of rebellion she sat down in ‘Vinnie’s chair’ and almost wished he were here now to see her sitting on his throne so she could make him experience the full force of Hope’s lungs. She’d give him a piece of her mind, with Hope as her backing vocals. He would surely rue the day if he knocked on the front door now. Would probably run a mile rather than try to batter his way in.

  After a few moments, though, her anger became sorrow and tears started cascading down her cheeks. She was a terrible mother. She was too old, and past it. She was a wreck now at this age. God knew what she would be like when Hope was older. The poor girl was going to feel like she was being brought up by her granny. She would be much better off being raised by someone like Bel. Young and happy and full of life. She’d bet her boots that Bel wouldn’t be bashing on walls and shouting like some nutter at her neighbours.

  Taking a deep breath, Gloria once again tried to placate her little girl by putting her over her shoulder and rocking her gently. But the screaming continued, and Gloria swapped Hope over to her other side to even out the assault on her ears.

  The more Hope screamed, the more Gloria’s thoughts of being an incompetent mother steamrolled on – how she thought her daughter would be much happier at the Elliots’ than here with her, and that Hope was never like this when she was with Bel.

  Gloria gently took Hope’s little squirming body and placed her on her lap; as she did so she remembered how sometimes it had calmed both her boys if she rubbed their stomach in circular motions.

  As she gently touched Hope’s tummy she could feel how tense her poor little girl was. Gloria started speaking in as soft a voice as she could muster as she rubbed her baby’s belly like it was a genie’s bottle.

  ‘Twinkle twinkle little star … how I wonder what you are …’

  Gloria closed her eyes as she half spoke, half sang the soothing lullaby despite being deafened by the high-pitched volume of her daughter’s screams. Still, when Gloria reached the end of the verse, the sound of her daughter’s bloodcurdling cries had dropped down a notch. Driven on by the success of the nursery rhyme, Gloria started singing it again. Her heart lifted as Hope’s crying started to stutter and there were gaps between the bawling.

  By the time Gloria had ‘wondered what you are’ half a dozen times, Hope was crying intermittently.

  Gradually, like a car running out of fuel, the crying spluttered to a halt, her daughter’s Cupid’s bow mouth emitting a trail of short, shuddering barks. Gloria felt her body heave the most monumental sigh of relief as, finally, Hope started to drift off to sleep.

  Terrified of waking her up again, Gloria decided to remain sitting in Vinnie’s armchair with her little girl cradled in her arms. She managed to reach over and pull the thick woollen throw off the back of the sofa and delicately place it over them both so at least they could stay warm.

  For the next hour Gloria sat there, looking at her mantelpiece with the photos of her two sons on it, as well as the stack of letters they wrote to her. She kept them to hand as she often liked to sit with a cup of tea and reread them. She wondered what they would think of their little sister. If they saw her now they would surely fall instantly in love.

  Gloria knew it would be a shock for them when they found out that their mother had not only had a baby, but that the baby was not their father’s. By the time they came home the truth would surely be out, that much she knew. But she didn’t care – as long as they came back safe, and in one piece, it wouldn’t matter what they said or thought.

  As her mind drifted, she wondered how on earth she was going to keep her eyes open tomorrow at work. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a decent night’s sleep. If Hope wasn’t keeping her up, the voice in her own head was. She worried that she had made a mistake by going back to work so soon, or indeed, if she should even be working at all. But then again, she argued with herself, financially she needed to.

  As the clock struck midnight Gloria started to drop off to sleep, but the respite from her constant stream of thoughts and worries and resentments didn’t last for long; every half hour or so she would wake up and her mind would start whirring once more, working overtime.

  By three o’clock she had lost all ability to be even the tiniest bit positive about her life. Like the pitch black night outside, she could only see doom and gloom. And lots of it. She even began to doubt Jack’s love for her before he’d left for America.

  How, in all seriousness, she asked herself bitterly, could she have believed Jack would be hers after all these years?

  Now she doubted whether – even if Jack had returned with his memory intact – he would have chosen to be with her and Hope. The night they had said their goodbyes, and Jack had sworn his love to her in the porchway of St Peter’s Church, she had felt nothing would ever stop them being together.

  Now she wasn’t at all sure.

  Would he really have given up his good, secure, and wealthy life with Miriam to be with a very dowdy, very poor – and now a very plump – Gloria?

  When she finally fell into a deep sleep at around four, Gloria’s dreams brought her no comfort. She found herself running around the shipyard unable to find what she was looking for, and the faster she tried to run, the slower she got, as if her limbs were sinking into quicksand. Disjointed images of Vinnie’s snarling, hate-filled face kept coming and going, mixed with the image of Miriam and Jack covered in confetti and laughing at her as she cradled her baby.

  When Hope stirred at around six o’clock, Gloria was quite relieved to be woken from her dreams and she found herself sweating, even though the house was now cold.

  Looking down at her baby girl as her eyes scrunched up and she enjoyed the biggest yawn for such a small mouth, Gloria had to smile. The little mite now snuggling happily in her arms bore no resemblance to the screaming terror of the previous night.

  ‘You want to go and see your aunty Bel now, don’t you? And I just know you’re going to be as good as gold for her.’ Gloria eased herself up out of the chair and carried Hope through to the kitchen to get her some milk.

  This time, though, she made sure the top was tightly screwed on.

  Chapter Twenty

  The following day Gloria congratulated herself on making it through the shift without either falling asleep on her feet or dropping through exhaustion. There’d been a rush on to get a 400-ton coastal col
lier back to work delivering coal from the area’s mines to London’s power stations on the Thames Estuary. Most of the welding had been overhead and her arms now felt like lead weights.

  At five thirty she said goodbye to the women who were staying late. It had been agreed that Gloria would be exempt from overtime because she had to pick Hope up before six, but also because she simply didn’t have the energy to do even a few minutes’ extra work – never mind a few hours.

  ‘Wait for me,’ Rosie shouted over as she grabbed her bags and gas mask and joined Gloria as she left for the main gates.

  ‘How you feeling?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘My brain feels like a merry-go-round, only there’s nothing merry going on in it, but it keeps going round and round,’ Gloria said with a tight smile.

  ‘While it’s been going around,’ Rosie continued the analogy, ‘has it thought any more about Jack? Or what to do about Vinnie?’ Rosie couldn’t help but worry about what Vinnie might do next. She knew that Vinnie was chomping at the bit to see the baby girl he believed was his. And, worst of all, she knew that the more Gloria refused to let him see her, the more wound up he would be. Men like Vinnie did not like anyone, let alone a woman, to tell them what to do.

  ‘Well, I think about Jack all the time,’ Gloria said. ‘I was up all night with Hope …’ her voice sounded sad and hopeless, ‘… and I kept thinking about what I should – or shouldn’t – do. And I realised I’ve got to do something … I can’t do anything about Jack getting his memory back. And,’ she added, her voice hardening, ‘I can’t do anything about Vinnie being a vile and violent man. And at the moment I can’t come clean about who Hope’s father really is. But I know one thing – I want to be free of Vinnie. And I can do something about that.’

  Rosie looked at Gloria, and asked, ‘Get divorced?’

  Gloria nodded. ‘I’m working full-time, so I can probably just about afford it.’

  ‘Shall I ask George to sort out someone decent who won’t swindle you?’ Rosie asked. ‘He knows just about all the solicitors in town. He probably went to school with most of them,’ she said, as they reached the ferry crossing and paid their fare.