Home Front Girls

by Rosie Goodwin

  ‘It might turn out to be the best thing she’s ever done,’ he said. ‘I mean, you’ve told me how devastated she’s been since she lost Mary and I believe that animals are meant to be very therapeutic.’

  Dotty nodded. She had told him about Mary’s death but not the fact that Lucy’s mother had stabbed her father to death. That knowledge would stay strictly between the people that Lucy had confided in, although sometimes Dotty wondered how Lucy had managed to cope with keeping such a terrible grisly secret for so long. It must have been eating away at her.

  She and Robert spent the rest of the day pleasantly. After going to have a peep at Dotty’s book cover that featured a handsome young soldier in uniform and a pretty girl who looked exactly as Dotty had described her, which she positively swooned over, they then went back to the magazine headquarters where Laura made tea and fussed over Dotty like a mother hen. She was very fond of Dotty and sometimes felt like banging Robert over the head with something heavy to bring him to his senses, because she had a sneaky suspicion that he was in love with the girl but was too shy to tell her so. From what she could make of it, Dotty was taken with him too, yet today for some reason the pair were skirting around each other like ballet dancers. It was all very frustrating. Why couldn’t they see what was right under their noses? But of course she kept her counsel and said nothing, tutting in exasperation when they finally left together to go for some lunch.

  ‘Would you like to join us?’ Robert had asked politely.

  Laura had grinned. ‘No, thank you. You know what they say – two is company, three is a crowd.’ She had winked at them blatantly but all her comment managed to do was make both of them blush and so she gave up and went back to work.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur and all too soon the couple were standing on the platform of Euston station again.

  ‘That’s my train in over there,’ Dotty said, suddenly feeling as if the cat had got her tongue. ‘I er . . . I’d better get on otherwise I might not get a seat. It’s always so busy at this time of day.’ She had booked her return journey for two hours earlier than she normally departed and now she was wishing that she hadn’t.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Robert too was feeling awkward and as much as he longed to give her a kiss, her stand-off attitude throughout the day had made him fear that his advances might be unwelcome. And so they shook hands formally and soon Dotty was staring from the carriage window looking for a sight of him. He usually waved until she was out of sight but today he had disappeared amongst the crowds and had not bothered waiting for her train to leave. Everything had gone exactly as she had planned, so she wondered why she felt so empty.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was on Annabelle’s birthday that the next bombshell was dropped, but it wasn’t by the Germans. They were all gathered in Miranda’s luxurious front room late in the afternoon and everyone was impressed by the buffet she had managed to put on, assisted by Dotty. Everyone but Annabelle, that is, who had been in a bad mood ever since Lucy and her grandparents had arrived. Lucy had presented her with a pretty silver ring, which Annabelle barely glanced at, and Dotty had bought her a bottle of the latest bright red nail polish and matching lipstick that were so popular at the time. Both Dotty and Lucy took to Annabelle’s grandparents immediately. In their late sixties, they were impeccably dressed and very well-spoken but they were also very friendly, so the atmosphere was light, or it would have been if Annabelle had tried a little.

  Her grandmother presented her with a beautiful solid gold brooch in the shape of a delicate leaf, set with emeralds, that had everyone’s eyes on stalks as they admired it. Neither Lucy nor Dotty had ever seen anything quite like it. But in her usual self-centred way, Annabelle merely glanced at it.

  ‘I do hope you like it, dear?’ her grandmother said as she noted Annabelle’s reaction to it. ‘And that you’re having a nice birthday?’

  The girl was thinking of the birthday party she felt she should have had, and her mood worsened each time she caught a glimpse of the For Sale board at the end of the drive through the front window.

  ‘I suppose it’s very nice but it would have been better still if someone had managed to get their hands on some silk stockings. I’m sick and tired of having to wear these awful thick lisle things! They’re so unbecoming.’

  ‘Annabelle, really!’ her mother scolded as she squirmed with embarrassment. ‘I’m sure the brooch is much better than any number of pairs of stockings. It’s something you’ll be able to keep forever. And one day you might be able to pass it on to your own daughter and tell her that it was a twenty-first gift from your grandparents.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Annabelle said ungratefully, dropping it onto the sofa as if it was nothing more than a cheap trinket from Woolworth’s.

  Her grandmother pursed her lips disapprovingly, but not wishing to spoil the occasion she told Miranda, ‘The tea looks lovely, dear. Quite a feast, in fact, when food is in such short supply. Did you make those sausage rolls and that trifle yourself? They look quite delicious.’

  ‘Yes I did,’ Miranda said proudly. ‘And the cake.’

  ‘Then I suggest we all tuck in,’ the older woman said with a bright smile. ‘Just looking at it is making me feel hungry.’

  As Annabelle glanced at the table she scowled, thinking again of the birthday party she had envisaged. This was certainly a far cry from what she had wished for.

  ‘Come on, darling. You go first,’ her grandmother encouraged. ‘You are the birthday girl, after all.’ She held a plate out to Annabelle but she declined it.

  ‘No thanks,’ she muttered ungraciously. ‘I’ve never been that keen on meat paste. If Daddy was here we’d be in some big hotel somewhere celebrating properly! With decent food to eat.’

  ‘Yes, but he isn’t here, is he?’ Mrs Hamilton Gower was losing her patience now. ‘He’s away at war fighting to try and keep us all safe. I would have thought you would be more concerned about your father’s safety than celebrating your birthday.’

  ‘He chose to go,’ Annabelle said nastily. ‘He didn’t even wait to be called up – and why shouldn’t I celebrate my birthday? I won’t be twenty-one again, will I? What do you expect me to do? Wait until this damn war is over?’

  Her grandmother seemed to swell to twice her size at the girl’s blatant selfishness, and before she could stop to think she blurted out, ‘How could you be so unfeeling? Do you never think of anyone but yourself, girl? Your father could be killed. He might never come home again. But then I always feared that you would turn out like this. Your parents have ruined you since the day your father fetched you!’ She clapped her hands over her mouth then and the colour drained from her face.

  Annabelle frowned. ‘What do you mean, since the day my father fetched me? I don’t understand. Mummy, what’s she talking about?’

  Miranda and her mother exchanged a glance and to everyone’s horror, the older woman began to cry. ‘I’m so sorry, dear,’ she sobbed as she looked at Miranda imploringly. ‘I never meant to say it. It just sort of slipped out.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Will someone just tell me what’s going on here,’ Annabelle ranted.

  ‘I always warned you this day would come,’ Miranda’s mother told her now in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘Secrets like this are too hard to keep forever. But I never meant it to happen like this, I swear it, darling.’

  Annabelle was stamping her foot with impatience now, so with a resigned sigh her mother turned to her. The moment she had always dreaded had finally come.

  ‘Perhaps we should go into the kitchen where we can talk in private?’ she suggested, but Annabelle shook her head.

  ‘I don’t want to go into the kitchen,’ she spat. ‘You can say whatever you have to say right here. There’s only family here, and Dotty and Lucy are my friends. I don’t mind them hearing whatever it is you’re going to say.’

  ‘Very well then.’ Miranda drew a long shuddering breath as she chose her words car
efully, but she feared that once they were said, things would never be the same again.

  ‘The thing is,’ she started hesitantly, ‘when your father and I got married we planned to have a big family. A huge family, in fact!’ She smiled nostalgically as she remembered how happy they had been, but then her eyes grew sad as she went on tremulously, ‘We tried for a baby from the second he put the ring on my finger, but time went by and each month I would cry with disappointment when I discovered that I wasn’t pregnant. Eventually we had to accept that it wasn’t going to happen for us and I sank into a depression. And then one night your father came home with a young girl. She was homeless and she had been hanging around his garage because he slipped her food and gave her a little money here and there. He felt sorry for her. But the thing is – she was heavily pregnant and she told your father that she didn’t want to keep the baby. So, he offered to buy the baby from her when it was born. She agreed, so then your father put her into a small hotel and paid a woman to go and deliver the baby when her time came. You were the result, and within hours of the girl giving birth he went and fetched you home and paid her. We haven’t seen or heard from her since.’

  Annabelle’s eyes were starting from her head. It was just too much to take in. ‘B-but who was she?’ she croaked. ‘You must have known who she was and where she was from?’

  ‘All we ever knew about her was that her name was Carol and that she had run away from home when she found out that she was pregnant. She never even told us who your father was. I’m so sorry you had to find out like this, darling! I always hoped you would never need to know. But it doesn’t change how daddy and I think of you, I promise. You’ve been our own since the very first second I set eyes on you, and I couldn’t have loved you any more even if I had given birth to you myself.’

  ‘You’re telling me that my mother was a runaway unmarried mother?’ It was too unbelievable to be true, and Annabelle felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her world.

  Then temper took hold and she shouted accusingly, ‘You’re lying! Tell me you’re lying! Why are you doing this to me – and today of all days too?’

  But one glance at her mother’s pallid face told her that it was true, every single word of it, and she sagged onto the nearest chair.

  Dotty and Lucy glanced at each other feeling totally in the way and wondering if they should leave. This was such a private moment and they felt that Annabelle should have some time to come to terms with what she had just learned.

  ‘I er . . . think I should be going now,’ Lucy mumbled, getting unsteadily to her feet.

  ‘Yes,’ Dotty agreed, hastily joining her. ‘I think I might go and stay at Lucy’s with her and Harry for the rest of the weekend too – if Lucy doesn’t mind, that is?’

  When Lucy shook her head, Dotty said, ‘Right then – I’ll just go and shove a few clothes into a bag and we’ll er . . . see you at work on Monday, shall we, Annabelle? And have a happy . . .’ the words trailed away. How could what was left of Annabelle’s birthday possibly be happy now after the disclosure of such a momentous secret?

  No one tried to stop them. It was as if everyone in the room had been rendered speechless, so Lucy and Dotty made a hasty retreat.

  ‘Phew!’ Dotty said some minutes later as they walked away from the house with Dotty clutching a small bag. ‘That was some party, wasn’t it? Poor Annabelle. She’s always been so full of herself, hasn’t she? I mean, she truly believed that she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, so this is going to hit her like a ton of bricks.’

  ‘Hmm, seems like I’m not the only one who had a secret in her past, doesn’t it?’

  They walked on in silence for a time until Dotty suddenly took Lucy’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Whoever we all are I’m glad we met and became friends,’ she said quietly. ‘And neither you nor Annabelle should feel ashamed of your past. Neither of you had a say in it, none of what happened was your fault.’

  ‘I just hope Annabelle will look at it like that,’ Lucy answered stoically.

  The two girls then moved on, their thoughts firmly fixed on Annabelle, who had possibly just had the worst birthday ever.

  *

  ‘Oh, good morning, Miss Smythe,’ Mrs Broadstairs said in astonishment the following Monday morning as she walked through the cosmetics department. Annabelle was behind her counter, but this girl looked nothing like the Annabelle that the woman was accustomed to seeing. Annabelle was usually so glamorous but today she was bordering on downright dowdy. Her beautiful blonde hair was scraped back into a severe ponytail at the nape of her neck and her face was bare of make-up.

  ‘Are you feeling unwell, dear?’ she asked as she stared at the transformation. She had often had cause to tell Annabelle off for being too glamorous, but now she realised that she actually preferred the glamorous to the dowdy.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you, Mrs Broadstairs,’ Annabelle answered meekly and again the woman was shocked. The girl had always been so full of herself and lippy into the bargain, but today she seemed positively subdued.

  ‘Good, good,’ she muttered and quickly moved on. Ah well, she thought to herself, we’re all entitled to our off days. Perhaps it’s the wrong time of the month? No doubt she’ll be back to her usual confident self tomorrow. She then continued with her inspection and moved on to the next department.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Dotty asked when they all met up in the dining room for their break.

  Annabelle shrugged. ‘How would you expect me to be feeling? I dare say you’ve both had a good laugh at my expense now you know what I really am.’

  ‘What do you mean, what you really are? You’re Annabelle Smythe, the same person you’ve always been.’

  ‘But I’m not though, am I?’ Annabelle stared down into her mug. ‘I’m the daughter of a common runaway girl.’

  ‘How do you know she was common?’ Dotty said indignantly. ‘Don’t you remember Mrs Cousins, my neighbour from Hillfields? She resorted to walking the streets, bless her, to put food on the table for her children. But she certainly wasn’t a bad person or common. Circumstances made her do what she did out of desperation. Perhaps it was the same for your mum? From what I could gather she was very young so perhaps she had no way of keeping you. She probably let you go because she wanted the best for you.’

  ‘Oh yes, how romantic,’ Annabelle said sarcastically.

  Dotty lowered her head then before saying cautiously, ‘I went to meet Miss Timms yesterday afternoon and she’s asked me again to move in with her, so I thought . . . Well, I’m very grateful for all you and your mother have done for me but I think it’s time to give you both a bit of space. You have a lot to come to terms with at present.’

  ‘If that’s what you want,’ Annabelle answered carelessly.

  Lucy and Dotty exchanged a worried glance, but they didn’t say anything. It was as if Annabelle had put up a brick wall and there was no getting through to her at the moment.

  That evening after work, Annabelle and Dotty travelled home together on the bus and Dotty told Miranda of her decision to move out.

  Miranda cried a little. She had grown very fond of Dotty and enjoyed having her around, but she didn’t argue with her. At the moment she was trying to spend as much time as she could with her daughter and Annabelle was her priority. Dotty packed her belongings quickly and efficiently. The whole of her worldly possessions amounted to no more than a small suitcase full of the clothes that Robert had bought for her, and her typewriter, which she packed carefully into its small hard case. She said her goodbyes to Miranda and within an hour was back on the bus on her way to stay with Miss Timms, who had written her address down for her. She lived on the main Kenilworth Road and when Dotty toted her cases off the bus she chewed her lip in agitation. The houses all looked very grand, even grander than Annabelle’s, and she felt out of place. They were all a very far cry from the orphanage she had been brought up in and her little flat in Hillfields, but she had no choice but
to go on now. Perhaps she could just stay for a few days and then start to look for somewhere else of her own again the following weekend?

  She walked on a little further until eventually she came to the number Miss Timms had given her. She took a deep steadying breath before setting off up the path and tapping on the door. It was a lovely old timbered house painted in white with the timbers painted black and its leaded windows sparkled in the early evening sun. Just like Miss Timms it looked very spick and span.

  The woman answered the door almost immediately. So quickly in fact that Dotty wondered if she had been watching out for her.

  ‘Oh you’re here at last,’ Miss Timms said happily as she took Dotty’s case from her. ‘You are so welcome and I have your room all ready for you. I do hope you’ll like it. I’ve put you in the back one overlooking the garden. But first you must eat. I have a meal all ready for you.’

  Dotty was overwhelmed at the greeting. It was almost as if she was visiting royalty.

  ‘I er . . . hope you don’t mind,’ she said as Miss Timms hauled her into a spacious hallway where a highly polished parquet floor shone in the dull light, ‘but I rang Robert and gave him your phone number this afternoon. I didn’t want him worrying about where I was.’

  ‘Ah, that’s your boyfriend in London, isn’t it? Of course I don’t mind. Your friends are welcome to ring you or call whenever they wish. This is your home now.’

  ‘Well, just temporarily,’ Dotty answered quickly. ‘And I really appreciate this but I think I might start to look around for another flat at the weekend. I can’t keep putting on people forever. And Robert isn’t my boyfriend. We’re just friends,’ she added.

  ‘Oh, but you can’t think about leaving when you’ve only just arrived!’ Miss Timms exclaimed. She spread her hands then. ‘This place is far too big me for now that Mother is gone,’ she confided. ‘In fact, it was too big when Mother was alive. We rattled around in it like peas in a pod, but she wouldn’t hear of moving. I’m afraid she was a terrible snob. Not an easy woman to live with at all, to be honest.’ She glanced nervously over her shoulder then as if the dead woman might magically materialise at any moment. But then she smiled again as she took Dotty’s elbow and led her towards the back of the house. Dotty was amazed as they moved on and felt as if she had stepped back in time. The house and its contents were very dated and fussy, and all the heavy furniture gleamed as if it had been polished to within an inch of its life. She got the impression that Mrs Timms must have been quite a slave-driver.