For All Our Tomorrows

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Why would they object to you, just because your father was Spanish?’

  ‘Bit more to it than that, child. My folks have lived in Savannah since way back. My great, great grandpappy on my momma’s side, now he was English, from Yorkshire. He married an Indian girl, one of the Yamacraws. Always were mighty friendly were the Indians in these parts. All thanks to James Edward Oglethorpe, leader of this here colony in the early days, ‘cause he treated them with proper respect. Always does pay to treat folk with respect. Don’t you reckon, gal?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Bette, thinking of Peggy.

  Big Fat Josie marched Bette over to the counter, behind which hung a large framed portrait. ‘There she is, my great, great grandmaw, still minding the place. Pretty little thing, jest like you. So ya see, I’se got all kinds of blood running in my veins but it never did me no harm. This is who I am, right? My folks believed in doing what they’d a mind to, and hang the consequences. You gotta do the same, gal. You makes up your mind you gonna do somethin’, you dang well gotta do it. Don’t let nobody tell you different. That’s how this whole darned country got built.’

  Bette could feel energy flowing back into her, just listening to this lovely woman talk. Already she adored Big Fat Josie and would have done anything for her. ‘I mean to make a good future for my son, and love him as your pappy did you. He’s all I’ve got now. I might have made some mistakes in the past but I’m learning, and I mean to take good care of him. I just need to earn some money.’

  ‘Sure you do. Well, I been thinking about that some while we’ve been jawing, and not all folks have hair like mine that don’t need nothin’. Plenty’d be glad of a make-over. There ain’t no hairdresser in this part of town. You could open up a salon right here in my store, and help me between clients, when you is quiet. How ‘bout that, gal?’

  Bette was bewildered, taken aback by Josie’s generosity and belief in her. ‘That sounds wonderful, but do you think I could do it?’

  ‘Sure you could do it. Bright, pretty thing like you.’

  ‘But I don’t have any money to set it all up.’

  ‘Don’t need none. Jake’ll fix you up a sink in the back store room. You can give it a good clean out and we’ll have you in business faster’n you can swat a horse fly.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Largely due to Big Fat Josie’s power in the community, within twenty-four hours, not one, but two sinks, had been duly installed, which Jake just happened to have lying about in his lock-up. And by the end of the week, assisted and generally bossed and bullied by Josie puffing and blowing alongside her, Bette had cleared out all the rubbish and shifted such items as were to be kept into one of the other store rooms.

  She’d swept and mopped the floor, found a couple of chairs for the clients to sit on, and some old tablecloths to drape around their necks to protect their clothes while the cutting and shampooing was done. They looked more like a barber’s cloth than a gown generally found in a ladies hair salon, but would serve the purpose well enough. Big Fat Josie was certainly well pleased with their efforts.

  ‘There you is, child, you’s in business.’

  Whereupon Josie stuck a large notice on the window. ‘Ladies Hair Salon Now Open. Cut and Shampoo for less than a Dollar.’

  ‘It won’t work,’ Bette said, suddenly overcome with nervousness at the prospect of becoming a businesswoman. She’d been carried along by her benefactor’s plan on a wave of relief and excitement, now she asked herself what the hell she was doing, setting up a hairdressing salon in this fine town with a woman who was part English, part Spanish and part native American? Had she gone completely out of her mind?

  And then the door opened and her first customer appeared. A young girl of eighteen or nineteen, a shy smile on her pretty face. ‘Is this the hairdressers? Could you make me blonde, like Betty Grable?’

  ‘Of course I can, er . . . certainly, madam.’

  ‘Hey, are you from Canada?’

  Here we go again, thought Bette, reaching for her comb.

  Chad found the letter Sara had written to Bette stuffed at the back of a drawer in the old kitchen dresser. He’d been looking for a writing pad and pen, meaning to write to her himself, believing her to be back in Fowey. He was missing her so badly that he still nursed a hope he could persuade her to return.

  He couldn’t remember a winter that had lasted as long as this one. When he’d been a boy, he hadn’t minded the cold blasts of wind that roared over the mountains, the weeks of snow, the lack of entertainment, things to do or people to talk to. But he must have changed because this one had driven him near demented with loneliness. He needed Bette, he wanted her. She was his wife and he loved her. He could understand now how lonely she must have felt, being in this strange place, this foreign land, and with a family who weren’t exactly welcoming. Maybe, he should go back to Fowey and live with her there, if that’s what she’d prefer.

  Yet how could she have gone home, if Sara was writing to her here?

  The letter was postmarked only a few weeks ago, yet according to his mother, Bette had walked out and gone back to England back in the fall, just a week after the baby was born.

  Something was wrong.

  ‘Mom, what did Bette say exactly, when she left?’

  Peggy looked up from her darning and stared blankly at her son. ‘You’ve asked me that a million and one times, boy and I’ve answered best I can on every occasion. She didn’t say nothin’. She just up and left.’

  ‘But she must have said something. She wouldn’t just walk out of a door with a new baby and all her worldly possessions without a word. Besides, she needed a lift to the station. What did she say to Harry?’

  ‘Have you ever found Harry talkative, ‘cause I ain’t.’

  ‘Mom! Tell me the truth.’ His tone had an edge to it now, and Peggy, sensing that he was losing patience, judged it wise to add a little more.

  ‘Don’t you go sounding off at me, boy. I’ve only ever tried to do my level best to make you happy. She said as how she didn’t like it here. Too quiet for a city gal, she says. How it had all been a big mistake her coming here to marry you. Complained about missing her mom and wanting to show her the baby.’

  Chad listened to all of this with an increasing sense of disbelief. ‘She isn’t no city girl, and she doesn’t really get on with her mother. Never met the woman myself but she and Bette always seemed to be at daggers drawn. Are you sure that’s what she said? She didn’t mention her sister, Sara?’

  Peggy turned away, looking slightly flustered and confused. ‘Heck, she might’ve done. How would I know what family the girl has, or where she comes from. Anyways, there all back together now, and good riddance.’

  He was flapping the letter in her face now. ‘How can they be? Her sister wouldn’t have written this darned letter if she was back home with her in England, would she? What’s happened to her? Where is my wife?’

  ‘Don’t make no difference to me where she is. She’s not the right wife for you, that I do know, and that child ain’t a Jackson.’

  ‘How do you know that? How can you be so certain? What colour was his hair, his eyes?’

  ‘Middling brown, I s’pose.’

  ‘Like mine.’

  ‘He didn’t have the Jackson chin, that’s what fixed it for me. We all has this square jaw, as you know well enough. Minute I set eyes on that infant, I didn’t see no square jaw.’

  Chad couldn’t believe what he was hearing and stared at his mother almost open-mouthed. ‘You decided he couldn’t possibly be my son because of the shape of his chin! Didn’t it cross your mind that he might have inherited his mother’s, which is small and pointed.’ Like an elfins, he thought, or a Cornish pisky. God, he missed that chin. He missed her.

  His mother was putting away her darning, even though she hadn’t finished it, fussing about, doing nothing in particular and managing to avoid eye contact, as she tended to do when shown to be in the wrong. ‘You jest be thankful y
ou’re well shot of her and that’s all I have to say on the subject. Wouldn’t do no good at all for you to be tied to that little strumpet for the rest of your cotton-picking life. She’s no better’n a whore.’

  ‘Don’t call her that.’ He grasped Peggy by the arm and jerked her round to face him. ‘You made her go! You told her that she wasn’t wanted here, or some such tale. Didn’t you?’

  Her silence, and the suffuse of colour in his mother’s face answered his question more eloquently than words ever could.

  ‘No wonder she went off so suddenly with a new-born baby in her arms. Bette didn’t go of her own free will at all. You sent her away. Damnation Mother, why the hell don’t you keep your blasted nose out of my business.’

  As Chad slammed out of the house, Peggy yelled after him, shaking a fist in fury. ‘All the darned British have ever done for you, is to rob you of a good arm and the ability to work the land. And taught you to swear!’

  Chad didn’t pause to answer. He stormed across the yard to the barn where Harry was storing turnips, grabbed him by the collar, spun him nimbly round with his one good hand and then smashed his fist plumb centre into his brother-in-law’s face, sending him sprawling backwards into the muck and straw.

  ‘Next time you fancy poking that dirty nose of yours into my affairs, I’ll bust it for you, okay? Think yourself damned lucky I don’t break it right this minute. Where is she, damn you? Where did you take her? Was it to the station? Which train did she catch?’

  Harry was struggling to sit up, holding his nose and whimpering, quite certain that it already must be broken, judging by the pain. He mumbled something which Chad didn’t quite catch and got kicked in the ankle for his trouble, making him scream with fresh anguish.

  ‘No, I didn’t!’ He was spluttering through spittle, snot and blood, pouring through his fingers. ‘I took her to the cabin, like I was told. She won’t starve. Take her provisions regular, jest like Mom tells me to, though she didn’t take in the last lot. Still there out on the porch.’

  This little confession very nearly earned him another kick as Chad became incandescent with rage at the thought of his family conspiring to keep his wife away from him. He grasped Harry by the collar and shook him, like the rat he was. ‘I’d like to snap your damned thick neck in two.’ Then he seemed to collect himself and flung Harry aside in a gesture of contempt. ‘If I find you’ve hurt her . . . Man, you’d best high-tail it out of here quicker than a buzz fly, before I come looking for you with a loaded shotgun.’

  Harry was shaking now, cowering in a quivering mass of fear on the dirt floor. ‘Never laid a finger on her, though she’s a tasty looking gal. Too soon after the birth for any fooling around, and she had the baby with her.’

  Chad gave a sound of disgust and minutes later he was racing down the road in the pick-up. He’d always avoided driving, leaving it to Harry because only having the one arm made gear changing a bit dicey, but he’d darned well cope somehow, or die in the attempt.

  A couple of hours later he discovered, to his despair, that the cabin was deserted. And by the look of it, it’d been empty for weeks. The ash in the stove was stone cold and a film of green had formed on the water butt. To his horror he saw that there’d been a fire in the back kitchen.

  ‘Dear God, don’t let Bette be dead.’

  Boxes of stale groceries stood about on the porch. Chad kicked at one in frustrated rage, making the eggs shatter and flour spill everywhere.. How could Mom do such a thing? What had possessed her? Jealousy perhaps? Over-possessiveness because of his injury? Or a foolish, outdated hatred of the British maybe.

  Chad addressed the silence, the empty, freezing cold landscape and the mountains he loved. ‘The Boston tea party took place a helluva long time ago. This is World War Two, another war altogether. And I want my wife back.’

  She couldn’t have just vanished off the face of the earth. Nor would she risk going off into the forest, not with a young baby. God, he hoped not. There were any number of hazards waiting for her there. Snakes, bears, he didn’t care to think.

  He got back in the truck and headed east. Bette may not be a city girl, but she sure did like towns and shops and such like, so that was the most likely direction she’d take. He’d stop at every town he could find, every petrol station, every general store. He’d ask every person he saw. Search the entire damn country till he found her.

  A cold winter had passed by, spring was here, trade was good, and Bette was content. Christmas had helped, with everyone wanting to look nice for parties and dances. Bit Fat Josie was the easiest person in the world to get along with and they were, in Josie’s parlance, happy as two bugs in a rug.

  Bette was delighted to be making money and paying her way at last. She was making a success of her life. Better still, she was able to mind Matthew while she worked. He could sit up now, safely harnessed in the old black perambulator, smiling cheerfully at all the lady customers, getting thoroughly spoiled.

  Each afternoon, Bette would walk him around town, as she so loved to do, passing the time of day, should she spot a customer, or stop and chat for a while. It felt good to be part of a community again, and word was spreading. Her engagement book was filling up as more and more ladies ventured into this part of town for a new hair-do. Bette was considering offering facials and manicures as well, which surely couldn’t be too difficult and would bring in even more trade.

  In the evenings, while she and Josie ate supper together, Matthew would lie on his blanket on the hearth rug so he could kick without being encumbered with his diaper. Then Bette would bath him and put him to bed.

  Only then, as night approached would she feel a twinge of loneliness and regret.

  She missed Chad badly, more than she’d expected to and often wondered how he was coping, and if he’d managed to find work himself. It wasn’t too bad during the day while she was kept fully occupied working. At night, it was different.

  There were times when she couldn’t get him out of her mind. She would lie in her narrow little bed up in the loft and the memory of his face would haunt her dreams to the extent that she would sometimes wake up in a lather of sweat, sure that she’d heard his voice calling her.

  Of Barney she thought not at all. She couldn’t even remember what he looked like. She wondered about him from time to time, if he was safe and well, if he’d survived the war. But no more than that.

  Over in Europe, peace had been declared, or so all the papers proclaimed.

  She missed her family, of course, Sara and Cory in particular. She’d sent them a card giving them her new address, without offering any further details. For some reason she didn’t feel ready to tell them that she and Chad had separated, that his family had turned her out. Far too humiliating. She wanted to make a success of her life before she told the whole sordid tale of her failed marriage. Now that she had a thriving business, she meant to write again soon, a proper letter this time, maybe by the end of the month.

  She just had to find the right words to explain why it had all gone wrong.

  Her heart still ached for Chad. if only his family had given them the chance to be on their own and properly get to know each other. Bette was quite sure things would have turned out entirely differently then. She really didn’t care if she never clapped eyes on any of the Jackson brood ever again. But she longed to see Chad again. She loved him still.

  And then one day the door opened and there he was.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Ship’s sirens and hooters sounded, every light and searchlight in the harbour, and in Fowey town itself, was switched on; a blazing celebration of peace. The town band played, church bells rang, special services were held. The narrow streets were bright with flags and bunting as the Flora Dance made its lively, happy journey through town led by the Carnival Queen, pausing every now and then for the dancers to hug and kiss friends and loved ones. The parade involved everyone, the men of the Coastguard and Lifeboat service, Hugh amongst them; Cory and his fellow
crew members from the River Patrol; the WVS with Nora prominently to the fore. The Red Cross, British Legion, Girl Guides and Boy Scouts, members of the armed forces and, bringing up the rear, a happy band of nurses. Sara walked along with these, smiling broadly in her new uniform, and there was a great deal to smile about.

  It was over. The war was won.

  There was a pause in celebrations long enough for people to gather about their wireless sets and listen to the voice of Winston Churchill telling them that at last, the war in Europe was at an end.

  ‘Long live the cause of freedom. God save the King.’

  Later that same evening in early May, Sara sat alone in her bedroom and wept, her happiness pricked like a burst balloon. Somehow the day had been too emotional, too exhausting. Glad as she was of the end to hostilities, she ached for Charlie. Had he survived that last, long, hard winter of battle? Would he ever come home? And if he did, it wouldn’t be to her.

  Having given up all hope of divorce, she’d written back to him to explain the situation, to say how very important her children were and how she could never risk their happiness. She’d known that he would be upset and bitterly disappointed, but that he would understand. Of course she didn’t really know if he’d ever got the letter, Sara just hoped that it had been forwarded to him by now.

  The invasion of Normandy last summer had taken longer than hoped and just before Christmas, when everyone was beginning to congratulate themselves on success, the enemy thrust forward again into Belgium right into Allied lines and it had taken well into January before the Battle of the Bulge had been won.

  And now, at last, peace had been declared.

  But where was Charlie now? Sara couldn’t bear to think that she might never find out what had happened to him. Was he safe, back home in America perhaps, with Yvonne? Or in a hospital somewhere undergoing surgery on an injured knee? She didn’t have the courage to write again, to discover the answers to these agonising questions, to find out if he was alive or dead. She must try to shut him from her mind. Oh, so much easier said than done.