When Edie arrived home she felt unsettled. Jessie’s reference to her past and the advice that she should make up her quarrel with Lil, to say nothing of her warning about Shirley, had disturbed Edie. There was no doubt she missed her friend dreadfully, but her own rigid moral code – no doubt born out of her own mistake – could not and would not condone what Irene had done. She had been unfaithful to Frank, had cuckolded him, and Edie could not forgive her for that. She sighed heavily as she unpacked her shopping, such as it was, and asked herself if she was really being unfair to Lil as Jessie had stated so bluntly. But this was different, this wasn’t just a young lass getting herself into trouble and marrying the father of her child as she and Archie had done. They’d been engaged, planning to get married anyway. It just happened that the wedding had to be brought forward a little, that was all. This was totally different, she told herself. This was infidelity of monstrous proportions. But was Lil to blame? At the moment, Edie couldn’t answer her own question.
And then there was Shirley. Archie had expressed doubts about Ursula and now Jessie had done the same. Whatever was she going to do about Shirley?
Forty-Seven
There was no pleasure in wrapping presents this year, nor hanging up the home-made paper chains and decorating the small artificial tree they’d had for years and which was looking sadly dilapidated. Edie made the Christmas puddings and a cake but her heart was not in it. And worse still, she was having to do it all herself this year. There was no Lil to share the planning and the preparation with. And there’d be no Lil and her family round Edie’s table on Christmas Day, though Edie hoped Tommy would be allowed to come round at some point, maybe for tea.
Archie’s ship was due to dock two days before Christmas Eve on the evening high tide, but when the following morning dawned and he had still not come breezing in the back door, calling a greeting as he always did, Edie began to worry. By the time Shirley arrived home on leave just after midday, Edie was pacing the hearth trying to decide whether or not she should go to the fish docks to find out for herself what was happening. How she wished she could have gone next door to share her worries with Lil. But the gulf between them held her back. Besides, Irene and her little bastard were still there and she certainly didn’t want to run into them. But she would have loved to have felt Lil’s arms around her and been able to pour out her fears to her understanding friend. And no one knew better than Lil what it was like to wait for hours for news of a husband missing out at sea. And then, in Lil’s case, it had been the very worst news.
‘The trains were packed,’ Shirley grumbled. ‘I reckon because the war’s over they’re letting as many home on leave as they can this Christmas. And, of course, there’re lots of them being demobbed as well.’ She sat down in her father’s chair, eased off her shoes and rubbed her feet. ‘I feel as if I’ve been on my feet for hours and then, when I got here, there’s some kind of flap on. The newspaper seller at the station was shouting about a trawler being lost at sea.’
At Edie’s startled gasp, Shirley looked up and then glanced round the room as if only just realizing that her father had not arrived home. Her eyes widening, she looked up at her mother as she asked hesitantly, ‘Dad?’
Edie pressed her fingers to her lips and shook her head wordlessly.
‘Right,’ Shirley said, with renewed vigour. ‘We’ll go down to the dock and find out what’s going on.’
‘They’d – have let us know, if – if—’
‘Of course, they would, Mam, but we’ll go anyway. Come on, get your coat.’
Edie was usually the strong, determined one, but for once, she seemed to have gone to pieces.
‘We – we had words just before he left,’ she blurted out, the guilt washing over her like a tidal wave.
Shirley looked at her in surprise. ‘You and Dad quarrelled? But you never part on a quarrel. It’s a rule in this house.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘It’s almost a law.’
‘I know,’ Edie said, distraught with anxiety.
‘What about?’ Shirley asked bluntly and then added beneath her breath, ‘As if I didn’t know.’
‘Her.’ Edie’s tone was harsh as she gestured to the house next door. ‘Look what trouble she’s caused.’
Once, Shirley would have leaped at the unexpected chance to drive the wedge between her mother and Lil even deeper. Since their friendship had deteriorated so swiftly, Shirley had felt closer to her mother than ever before and even though she was away from home, Edie seemed to confide in Shirley more in their regular exchange of letters. But a change had come over the young woman; she was leading her own life now, was more self-confident and had made friends, the bitterness she felt about her place within the family still rankled a little, but now she could put it behind her and move forward with her own life.
‘She’s split this family apart,’ Edie was saying, ‘And if owt’s happened to your dad, I’ll blame her an’ all. I’ve never – in all the time we’ve been married – parted on harsh words. And it’s all her fault that we did.’
Shirley made no comment, but reached for her mother’s coat on the peg behind the door. ‘Come on, we’ll go and see what we can find out.’
For a cold winter’s afternoon the dockside was surprisingly busy. ‘Looks like summat’s up,’ Edie murmured, squinting through the gloom for the sight of anyone she knew; anyone who might know something.
‘Well, well, well, look who’s over there.’
‘Who?’ Edie asked sharply, but she couldn’t see anyone she knew.
‘Over there. Standing in the shadows.’ Shirley’s sharper eyes had spotted someone she knew. ‘It’s Ursula.’
‘Where?’
Shirley pointed and following the line of her daughter’s gaze, Edie murmured, ‘Mebbe your dad was right about her. What’s she doing hanging about on the dock-side on a day like this?’
‘She’ll be here to get a story,’ Shirley said. ‘Come on, let’s go across. She might know something.’
‘They won’t tell a reporter before they tell the families – if – if there’s anything to tell.’ Tears smarted in Edie’s eyes; already she was fearing the worst.
‘Oh, you’d be surprised what Ursula can find out. Come on.’
As they drew close to where she was standing, Shirley called out to her. ‘Ursula.’
The girl jumped visibly, then she seemed to relax when she realized who was calling her name. ‘Oh – Shirley. And Mrs Kelsey.’
‘Have you heard any news? My dad should have docked yesterday and Mam’s worried sick it’s his trawler that’s missing.’
‘There are two late back,’ Ursula said. ‘And it seems they’ve lost radio contact with both of them.’
‘Oh no!’ Edie breathed.
It was what had happened the night Lil’s husband, Tom, had been missing.
‘You there, Lil?’
Lil heard the knocking on her front door and hurried to open it. To her surprise, it was Jessie standing there. ‘Can I come in? It’s arctic out here.’
‘Oh, yes, yes, of course.’ Lil was flustered by Jessie’s unexpected arrival on her doorstep. As she closed the door and replaced the draught excluder she asked. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
‘Haven’t you heard? There are two trawlers late back and one of them’s Archie’s.’
Lil’s fingers fluttered to cover her mouth as she gasped, ‘No, oh no!’
‘Edie didn’t come to tell you, then?’
Mutely, Lil shook her head as tears filled her eyes. She should have been there for her friend, should have been there to comfort and console her, but it seemed the chasm was too wide and deep for Edie to turn to her even in her greatest trouble. The realization cut Lil profoundly and she dropped her head as the tears flowed down her cheeks.
‘Come on, Lil. I’ll make you a cuppa.’ It was just the sort of thing that Edie would have said – had said so many times – that Lil’s tears flowed even faster.
Lil had always been a little
in awe of Edie’s sister. Jessie was strong-minded and outspoken – even more so than Edie, and she was bad enough when she was in the mood. But Jessie strode through life carrying all before her, not suffering fools at all, never mind ‘gladly’, as the saying went. She had been the proverbial tower of strength in the WVS and Lil wondered what Jessie would do now that the war was over. No doubt she’d find some other worthy cause to organize. Maybe she would stay on and build up the peacetime work of the local WVS. But, for the moment, Lil was thankful to let Jessie take over and make tea for them both.
‘Where’s your Irene? Would she like a cup?’
‘She – she’s upstairs. Putting Tommy to bed.’
‘Ah, bless him. He’s growing into a grand little chap. I saw him last week round at Edie’s.’ Jessie met Lil’s gaze as she handed her a steaming cup of tea and sat down with her own. ‘Now, tell me about this baby. What’s gone on, Lil?’
Lil sighed and shrugged helplessly. ‘Irene won’t tell me much. Edie found out more than I have.’
‘Edie!’ Jessie was startled. ‘I thought she wasn’t speaking to any of you – apart from Tommy, of course.’
‘She isn’t – well, not really, but she comes and shouts at me over the fence now and then. She’s blaming us for the fact that none of her family are coming home.’ Lil sighed. ‘I suppose – in all fairness – it is Irene’s fault that Frank’s decided to stay away at the moment, but we can hardly be blamed for Reggie and certainly not for Beth.’
‘Ah yes, Beth. None of us know what’s happened to her, now do we?’
Lil’s head shot up as she stared at Jessie. ‘What – what do you mean?’
Jessie shrugged. ‘Scarcely a word from her for months. Not even since the war ended.’ She cast a sly glance at Lil before she said bluntly, ‘I reckon she might have got herself into trouble and daren’t come home. Her dad idolizes her. He’d be so disappointed and her mam would half kill her.’ She sniffed. ‘Though I expect Shirley’d be cock-a-hoop to think the idol had fallen from her perch.’
‘They’d stand by her,’ Lil murmured. ‘It’s what you do.’
Jessie eyed Lil speculatively. ‘You’re standing by Irene, then?’
Lil nodded. ‘She’s my flesh and blood. She’s all I’ve got. Her and Tommy and – and Marie.’
‘Can I see her?’ Jessie asked in what, for her, was an unusually gentle tone. Whenever a baby had been born into the family, the childless Jessie had become wistful and it seemed that the unexpected – and unwelcome – arrival of Irene’s baby girl was not going to be an exception.
‘Of course.’ Lil jumped up. ‘I’ll fetch her down.’
‘Don’t wake her if she’s sleeping.’
‘Well, she might be now. You come upstairs, then.’
‘All right.’ Jessie set her cup down and stood up to follow Lil.
She’s a strange one, Lil was thinking as she led the way upstairs and into the front bedroom where Irene and her two children slept. Jessie was a good-looking woman, tall and slim, with shoulder-length brown hair and dark eyes. She always dressed smartly. Clever with her sewing machine and needle and thread, she’d turned pre-war clothes into fashionable garments by shortening skirts and copying the latest styles from magazines. She always wore a jaunty hat and, in winter, a fur stole around her shoulders over a tailored costume. She was outspoken to the point of blunt rudeness on occasions and though most of the time she used big words where simpler ones would have done, when she was angry or ‘on her high horse’ about something as Edie had always described it, she was quite capable of peppering her language with swear words. Jessie was a strange mixture, but Lil had always liked her even if she had been a little in awe of her. She’d certainly admired her strength of character.
But tonight Jessie was gentleness personified as she leaned over the side of the cot that had served all Edie’s children and Tommy’s early weeks too. It was strange, Lil thought irrationally, that Edie hadn’t demanded the cot be returned to her. Perhaps she hadn’t stopped to think the ‘the little bastard’ might be sleeping in it, Lil thought wryly.
‘She’s a pretty little thing,’ Jessie murmured as she gazed at the sleeping child in the dim light from the night-light on the mantelpiece. ‘Lovely blond hair and such long eyelashes.’ Then she straightened up and turned to look at Irene hovering in the shadows on the far side of the bedroom.
‘Oh, Irene love,’ Jessie said, with a surprising note of sadness in her tone. ‘Whatever is Frank going to say?’
Forty-Eight
It was a long evening for all of them. When midnight came and went and there was still no news, Shirley at last persuaded her mother to return home. ‘We can’t do any good here, Mam. They’ll let us know if they hear anything.’
‘I’ll be staying,’ Ursula said. ‘I’ll come at once if . . .’
Edie was cold, chilled through, and it wasn’t all because of the winter’s night. Her heart felt as if it was frozen. But she allowed Shirley to lead her home as one might have done a bewildered child.
‘I’ll make cocoa and then you’re going to bed.’
‘No, no, I can’t do that, Shirley. Really, I can’t. I’ll sit here in the chair near the fire, but you go up.’
‘No, no, I wasn’t going anyway,’ Shirley declared. The thought of keeping vigil hadn’t occurred to her until this moment, but there was no way she was going to bed and leaving her mother alone. ‘I’ll fetch a couple of blankets down and keep the fire going.’
So, for the rest of the night, mother and daughter sat huddled in blankets in front of the fire, waiting for news. And just the other side of the wall, Lil, too, sat in her chair by the fire through the interminable night, longing to be with her friend and yet too afraid to do anything about it.
As the pale light of Christmas Eve morning crept across the cold North Sea, two fishing boats edged slowly into the Grimsby dock, one towing the other and coming in on the tide.
From the shadows, Ursula watched as the men, cold and hungry, walked down the gangway. The skipper of the first trawler stayed on his bridge, but Ursula was sure it was Archie. She left her place where she had been standing for most of the night and, moving stiffly, went to meet the fishermen as they came ashore. As she moved closer she could see that it was Archie’s ship, The Havelock.
‘What happened? Why are you so late back?’
Most of the men glanced at her and walked on, not slowing in their haste to reach warmth and a good, hot meal, to say nothing of letting their anxious families know that they were safe. Only one, a young boy of sixteen or so, stopped to speak to her.
‘Our ship’s engine failed,’ he jerked his thumb towards the vessel that had been towed home, ‘and Mr Kelsey was fishing nearby. He came to our rescue. But for him,’ he grinned, ‘we might have been spending Christmas at sea.’
‘Is everyone all right?’
The boy nodded. ‘Aye, every one of us – thanks to Mr Kelsey.’ The boy turned away and hurried after his shipmates.
‘Happy Christmas,’ Ursula called after him and the boy turned round briefly to shout, ‘It will be now, miss.’
No one else seemed to be leaving the two trawlers and Ursula could see that Archie was still busy aboard his ship, so she turned and left the dockside to go home, but first she must go and see Shirley and her mother.
The knock at the front door startled both Shirley and Edie. They had been dozing in their chairs and now both woke with a start at the sound. For a moment they stared at each other, horror-stricken. No one ever came to the front door unless it was as the bearer of bad news. Except Ursula. Ursula always came to the front door. Oh please, let it be Ursula knocking, Edie found herself praying as she struggled to her feet. But she found that her legs wouldn’t work and it was left to Shirley to open the door. Edie held her breath, listening intently for the sound of a man’s voice – a man who would have come to tell them – but a grinning Shirley was leading a smiling Ursula into the room.
‘He
’s all right, Mam, he’s safe.’
Edie’s wide eyes went to Ursula’s face and the girl nodded. ‘It’s true, Mrs Kelsey. I have seen him myself.’
‘Sit down here, Ursula, and tell us.’
She sat down in the chair where Shirley had spent the night and held out her hands to the fire. ‘I stayed all night and about an hour or so ago, I saw two ships coming in. One – your husband’s – was towing the other one. Mr Kelsey is still aboard his ship, but I spoke to a boy as he came ashore. It seems the other trawler’s engine broke down and your husband towed them back home. That’s why they were so late and one of the men told me that they couldn’t send word because the ship-to-shore radio wasn’t working properly.’
Edie collapsed against the back of her chair and closed her eyes. ‘Oh thank God, thank God.’
When at last Archie arrived home it was to a rapturous welcome from his wife and daughter. Even Ursula stood behind them smiling widely. Edie shed a few tears against his shoulder.
‘Now, now, love, what’s all this?’ he said, patting her shoulder, a little embarrassed by her display of emotion in front of a comparative stranger. It wasn’t something Edie did very often.
‘We parted on a quarrel. I’d never have forgiven myself if – if—’
‘Everything’s all right, love,’ he said softly in his deep voice. ‘And I’ve got a whole week off, right over Christmas and New Year. My ship’s going in for repair. I’m sorry you were so worried because I couldn’t send word.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘So much for modern technology – never works when you really need it.’
Edie drew back and wiped her tears. ‘Never mind, it’s all right now, but just for a while there I thought you weren’t going to come home either. Still, we can have a nice Christmas now – well, as good as we can make it without half the family – but Ursula’s going to join us, aren’t you, love?’
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