Secrets of the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  But Vinnie just didn’t seem to be letting this go. The baby was now – what? Four or five months old and he was still harping on about not seeing it.

  All evening Sarah kept thinking about how she and Vinnie had been rubbing along just nicely since they had started living together – that was until this damned baby had come along. Now, Vinnie seemed to be drinking more, which in turn meant he never had any of his own money and, worse still, he was on an increasingly short fuse most of the time.

  The more she thought about it, the more she believed that if she could just somehow get shot of the baby, they could get back to normal. They might even finally get married if this divorce went through.

  But, if the baby kept getting in the way, and spoiling their lives, her whole house of cards would come tumbling down and she could well be left with nothing and no one. This baby could well be the ruination of her hopes for her future.

  Her thoughts were broken by Vinnie’s loud exclamation.

  ‘I should just snatch her!’ he declared.

  ‘Who – Gloria?’ For a moment Sarah was confused.

  ‘No, yer stupid mare, the baby,’ Vinnie laughed nastily. ‘No one can stop me – the bairn’s mine after all.’

  It was at that moment she was struck by an idea.

  An idea that might well stop Vinnie going on and on about this damned child.

  ‘I know you might not want to hear this, Vinnie?’ Sarah was treading on very thin ice and knew it.

  Vinnie looked at her. He was in a better mood but still had that dark, angry look about him.

  ‘But have you ever considered …’ Sarah paused while Vinnie ordered their drinks and asked for them to be put on his tab.

  ‘Yeah, considered what?’ Vinnie asked, a little impatiently.

  ‘Well, I was just thinking––’ The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of their drinks.

  Vinnie took a big glug of his pint of Vaux.

  ‘I was wondering if … perhaps … Gloria’s baby might not be yours.’

  There. She had said it.

  Sarah took a drink of her port and lemon and mentally crossed her fingers that Vinnie didn’t flare up.

  Vinnie looked at Sarah as if it was taking him a while to understand the meaning of her words.

  Sarah looked at her lover and wondered if she had just made a catastrophic mistake.

  She didn’t really think that Gloria would have really taken a lover while Vinnie was still at home. She just wasn’t the sort. She’d seen her a few times in town and on the buses, and she looked a bit of a frump. Very ordinary looking, boring brown hair, and having a baby later on in life had certainly done a job on her figure.

  ‘What you saying?’ Vinnie asked, looking a little confused. ‘That Gloria’s had someone else?’

  Sarah looked at Vinnie and took another sip of her drink. She would have to play this one very carefully and very cleverly if it was to have the desired effect.

  ‘All I’m thinking … is that I know you, Vinnie,’ Sarah lowered her voice. ‘You’re always very careful.’ She stressed the word ‘careful’.

  Vinnie nodded his head slowly.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. His hand was around his pint glass but he didn’t make any effort to take a drink.

  ‘Aye, you’re right, I am. Always get off at Gateshead.’

  Sarah didn’t say anything, knowing when to keep quiet.

  Sitting quietly, surrounded by the growing chatter and clashing of pint glasses as the pub landlord tried to get people to sup up and leave, Sarah felt a wave of anger rise up in her that she fought to suppress. If Vinnie had done what he had said he had done (or rather not done) and hadn’t had anything to do with his wife in the bedroom department, then they wouldn’t be in the situation they were now in.

  When Sarah had got to hear that Gloria was pregnant, and the paternity of the child was not in question, she had been hurt that Vinnie had clearly still been sleeping with his wife – something he had denied throughout the whole of their affair. Sarah had foolishly believed him. When he had told her, a little shamefaced, that Gloria had a bun in the oven, his excuse was that it must have been a one-off, after he’d had one too many. And who was Sarah to argue?

  ‘You know what, Sar,’ Vinnie said, pausing to neck his pint. ‘I had actually wondered that myself … a while back …’ He took another glug of beer and put his empty pint glass down.

  It had gone through his mind that the bab might not be his not long after he had found out Gloria was in the family way. But he had dismissed the possibility almost at once. There was just no way in a million years that Gloria, out of anyone, would have had a bit on the side … But now that Sarah had pushed the idea back into his head, it had made him think again. And this time he wasn’t so quick to dismiss it. It would certainly explain a few things – the way she had been with him this past year, the fact she wouldn’t let him see the bairn, and now she seemed in a hurry to get a divorce …

  Sarah finished her drink quickly and they both climbed off their bar stools and threaded their way through the smoky lounge and out of the pub.

  Outside, the wind had really got up; rubbish that had escaped from some of the bins was swirling around in the growing tempest.

  Sarah staggered a little to the side of the road, but stopped herself from stumbling into the gutter. ‘Bloody blackouts!’ she mumbled, trying to blame her near fall on the lack of light as opposed to several bottles of beer followed by a chaser.

  As they battled their way down the street, both of then holding on to the fronts of their coats lest the wind try and tear them off their backs, Sarah stole a glance at Vinnie. He looked deep in thought, which was unlike Vinnie. She wasn’t sure whether that was to do with the drink, or the doubt she had placed in his head.

  If he had any sense at all about him he would be jumping at the idea that he could be freed from the responsibility of this new baby – from having to be a dad. Again. Twenty years on from being a father to his two boys. To be footloose and fancy-free. Not shackled to something that only screams its head off, sicks up and sleeps.

  When they reached the flat and Sarah started fumbling around for her front door key, her thoughts swung to Gloria. She knew she wouldn’t be bothered if she or her baby never saw hair nor hide of Vinnie again. The divorce papers had proved that.

  Finally Sarah found her front door key and pushed it into the lock.

  Gloria quite obviously wanted to wipe her hands clean of her ex, which would leave the way clear for her and Vinnie to start their life – hopefully married life – afresh: no mitherings from his ex and, most of all, no screaming baby in the background.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  As the rain started to lash down on the windows and the winds howled outside, Jack looked across at his wife as she lay in bed. She was out for the count. He could smell the gin on her now and knew she kept some tablets in her bedroom drawer to help her sleep. He also knew he could get up out of bed without any questions or cajoling to come back and join her.

  Still, just to be on the safe side, he manoeuvred himself gently and quietly out of bed, making sure he put the bedclothes back around Miriam so that she would not feel the cold and wake.

  Grabbing his thick night robe Jack pulled it on, then slipped out of the room. Quiet as a mouse, he padded down the carpeted stairs and into the main living room where the drinks cabinet could be found.

  Jack put one of the side lights on – just enough to see what he was doing. Then he went over to the walnut cabinet, fully stocked with just about every kind of alcoholic beverage, more than they should have had, considering wartime shortages.

  He took the bottle of Glenfiddich and poured himself a good measure, immediately taking a mouthful and swallowing hard. He needed this. As the burn travelled from his mouth, then throat and down into his stomach, he started to feel a little calmer.

  Now that he was on his own, in the semi-darkness, with no one distracting him, asking him questions, or telling him
things, he could try and think clearly. Go over what he had learnt today.

  He’d had to sit through another mind-numbingly boring dinner party at some high society house a few streets down, and all he wanted to do was simply be on his own, with his own thoughts, mulling over what Arthur had told him today.

  Jack sat on the leather chesterfield and said a silent prayer of thanks that his daughter had gone up to Scotland for a few weeks to see relatives and to have a break. The poor girl had been working her socks off at the yard while he had been away in America, by all accounts, and when he’d been in hospital she had barely left his side. He loved his daughter dearly, but he was glad that this evening he knew he would be undisturbed.

  ‘Arthur.’ Jack said the name quietly to himself, as if saying it would bring back the memory of this old man he had apparently known so well for most of his life.

  Chatting to him today he had felt a few green sprouts start to peek their way through the barren wasteland of his memory. For the first time since he had come out of his coma he had a sense of his past. It was still pretty murky, but he had felt that there might be the slightest possibility that his memory, or at least a part of it, could come back. For once he had felt some kind of connection with the past.

  When Miriam chatted to him, it was like listening to the story of another person’s life, but with Arthur he had a feeling of reality.

  But what had really made him think – and was the reason he was now sitting here, late at night, on his own, in the semi-darkness, unable to sleep and in need of a large whisky – was Arthur’s mention of Gloria.

  He understood now why she had visited him in the hospital, but what he didn’t know was why she hadn’t said as much when he had seen her in the yard that day. Wouldn’t it have been normal to mention it? Or did she not say anything because of Miriam? And, come to think of it, Miriam had acted like she didn’t even know Gloria.

  Nothing made sense.

  Jack finished off his whisky and as he made his way back up to bed, he hoped he’d be able to get some sleep. He needed to get into work early tomorrow to arrange cover while he went to meet Arthur. He didn’t want their meeting to be rushed.

  He wanted – no, needed – time to hear more about this woman called Gloria. He had a lot of questions he wanted to ask his old friend, Arthur.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Brookside Gardens, Sunderland

  In the early hours of the morning, DS Miller got up and used his work boots as a doorstop to prevent his bedroom door from opening and shutting. The wind was so bad it was penetrating the house. He’d even had to peg his blackout curtains together as they kept flapping open with the wind forcing itself through any available nook or cranny.

  As he climbed back into the bed he had once shared with his wife, he thought back to the day she had died and the following weeks and months when he had tried to deal with the heartbreaking grief that had overtaken every part of his being. He had felt desolate and so angry at the injustice of it all – his beautiful, kind wife had been taken from him when she was still so young and they had so much of their lives ahead of them.

  As he lay with his eyes open, having given up on sleep, DS Miller looked at the ceiling and the wall with the rose-patterned wallpaper. He had not felt this bereft since Sal had died. He knew, of course, that the feelings of melancholy that now afflicted him could not be compared to those he felt over the death of his wife, but still it was as if, in a way, he was mourning a loss – the loss of a person he thought he knew. A person he had loved.

  As if it was not enough that the world around him was at war, his mind too was in constant conflict. For the past week or so since he had discovered the truth about the house in West Lawn, and about Rosie’s part in the goings-on there, there had been a civil war going on in his head as to what to do.

  One army of thoughts argued that he should do what he had sworn an oath to do at the beginning of his career with the police force: that he should do things by the book and arrest and charge Rosie – and Lily – with running a brothel.

  He had been more than aware of how ironic it was that he’d felt relieved when he had found out that Rosie was managing the place rather than being a working girl – even though it would probably be better for her if she was simply providing services to those who visited, as the sentence she would receive would be far less.

  Then there was a second army of thought that fought valiantly against the first, which proposed that he turn a blind eye to what went on at Lily’s; after all, what harm were they really doing?

  The part of him that still loved Rosie said that he should simply walk away and erase from his mind what he had found out. That was the preferable option.

  But – and it was a big ‘but’ – he had devoted his whole life to the pursuit of justice and the enforcement of law and order.

  And there was no getting away from the basic fact that both Rosie and Lily had broken the law of the land – and, as such, justice needed to be served.

  DS Miller forced himself to close his eyes in an attempt to get some sleep. He had a busy day tomorrow.

  He had a christening to attend.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Saturday 22 November 1941

  When Vinnie woke he looked at the bedside clock. It was half past eight. Normally on a Saturday if he wasn’t working overtime he would have a long lie-in with Sarah, then have a fry-up if there was any bacon or black pudding on the go and then he’d head off to the pub with his week’s wages.

  Today was going to be different. He’d thought about it on the walk home last night and the same thoughts had stayed in his head until he had fallen asleep. Now, he was awake and he was still adamant. It was time for him to take control. He was going to see the bab if it was the last thing he did on this earth. No one was going to stop him. He was sick to death of Gloria calling all the shots and telling him what he could and couldn’t do. He’d had enough.

  Vinnie subconsciously clenched his fists as he lay in bed, his mind going over all the scenarios. He would know if the child was his by looking at her. Of this he was sure. His two sons had looked the spit of him when they were babies. Same deep brown eyes. Both chunky. Like little barrels, they were.

  Feeling energised by his anger, Vinnie flung the bedclothes off him, causing Sarah to grumble about the cold.

  After picking up his clothes from the floor and quickly pulling them on, he leant over the bed and kissed Sarah on the side of her head.

  ‘I’m just nipping out, pet,’ he said, ‘you stay here. I’ll see yer later on.’

  There was no way he wanted her to know what he was up to. She’d get to know soon enough.

  As he let himself out of the flat, he grabbed the solicitor’s letter, screwed it up into a ball and shoved it in his coat pocket.

  ‘So, Detective Sergeant Miller, how many men do you need?’

  DS Miller thought Detective Inspector Young looked dead on his feet. They were stretched thin these days with so many of the police officers volunteering to go to war.

  ‘Just the one, sir … Just need to make an arrest. Shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘Take special constables Hargreaves and Jenkins. They’re both free this morning, and they’ve got a bit of muscle on them – should you need it.’

  DS Miller shook his head. ‘I’m sure I won’t, but thank you, sir. We’ll be back by midday at the latest. Is the custody suite free?’

  Detective Inspector Young nodded. ‘We’ve got vacancies – there’s one of our regulars in there at the moment, stinking the place out to high Jesus, but he should be gone soon enough – just waiting for him to sober up before we send him on his way.’

  Ten minutes later DS Miller, and the two special constables were heading down the Hendon Road at a brisk pace. It had just gone nine thirty. The weather had not eased off at all: it had actually got worse. Although it was almost mid-morning, the high winds were pushing dark clouds across the sky making it feel like they were heading towards e
arly evening.

  ‘Sarge,’ Special Constable Jenkins had to shout to be heard through gusts of winds. DS Miller looked a million miles away.

  ‘Sarge,’ Jenkins repeated, tapping his superior on the shoulder to get his attention.

  DS Miller turned sharply.

  ‘Where exactly are we going?’

  ‘St Ignatius Church on the corner of Bramwell Road.’

  Jenkins and Hargreaves looked at each other, both their faces showing surprise.

  ‘Come on, Lily,’ Rosie chided, ‘otherwise we’ll be late. The vicar’s only just managed to squeeze Hope’s baptism in between a couple of others.’

  Rosie had come over to the house early to get herself ready for the christening. Over the past few days since Peter’s revelation to her that ‘he knew’, she had been spending a lot of time at the bordello. She had felt the need to be there, should there be a raid on the property. This was, after all, her doing, although no one had so far had a go at her for bringing it upon them all. The only comment Lily had made was one of surprise that it had been Rosie’s love life that had brought such trouble to their doorstep – and not Vivian’s or one of the other girls’.

  ‘I’m coming!’ Lily’s voice sounded croaky as she came down the stairs slowly, taking care with each step because the shoes she was wearing had a higher than normal heel. She was also a little unsteady on her pins, as she’d had a big swig or two of brandy. She was feeling particularly reckless due to the prospect that she might soon be residing in a six by eight cell with no chance of access to any kind of liquor, never mind the best French brandy that money could buy. Her philosophy was: if she was going to go down, then she was going to go down tanked up.

  ‘Come on,’ Rosie said. Taking Lily’s arm as she reached the bottom step, Rosie was immediately overcome by a mixture of Coco Chanel perfume and Rémy Martin. ‘George has got the engine running. He’ll be using up his meagre petrol ration.’