Goodnight Sweetheart

by Pam Weaver

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t already have your pants down, soldier?’ Spinks said lazily. ‘Weren’t you already having your way with that white woman?’

  ‘No sir, no!’ Henry panicked. ‘I knowed she was a respectable girl.’

  ‘Can you describe your assailants?’ Giles asked.

  Henry glanced at Spinks. The sergeant kept eye contact while he took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘It was too dark, sir.’

  ‘You said “they” pulled your pants down.’

  ‘There was more than one, sir,’ Henry said helplessly.

  ‘Describe them.’

  ‘Like I said, sir, it was too dark.’

  ‘What about the girl? Could she identify who did this?’

  ‘We’ve made extensive enquiries, sir,’ said Spinks, ‘but the girl cannot be found.’

  ‘Was she a local girl?’

  ‘Just some white trash whore,’ said Spinks.

  ‘She was a respectable woman,’ Henry protested. ‘She was in the Wrens.’

  ‘Ha! What is it the Limeys call them? A sailor’s nightshirt,’ Spinks sniggered. Henry made to protest but he waved his hand dismissively. ‘You were popular at the dance, weren’t you?’ Spinks went on. ‘The crowd gave you a clap for your dancing. Maybe one of the other black boys was jealous.’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘Maybe they all got together and decided to teach you a lesson.’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘You know, Sir,’ said Spinks looking at the First Sergeant. ‘I think that’s what happened. He got beat on by the coloureds.’

  ‘No, no sir. It wasn’t like that.’

  Spinks leaned towards Henry. ‘Soldier, I hope you’re not suggesting a white man did this to you,’ he said coldly.

  ‘No sir,’ cried Henry. ‘Like I said, it was dark. It all happened too quick. I never saw who done this to me.’

  Thirty-Three

  North Farm, Broadwater, Sussex, April 1944

  Aunt Bet welcomed Romare into her home like a much-loved son. Frankie had told her some time before that he was black so she knew it wouldn’t be a problem, but getting time off together had proved to be extremely difficult. Like hundreds of others caught up in this wartime situation, they had to settle for a snatched hour or two here and there and only when they could get their leave to coincide. They still managed to write to each other and occasionally they arranged to speak on the phone but they were both very busy.

  Things were moving on apace all along the south of England and even Worthing itself resembled an army barracks. The Fourth Armoured Brigade had taken over the Eardley hotel and two hundred tanks lined the streets all around. The Fifteenth Scottish Infantry had commandeered the Beach Hotel, the Royal Scots Greys were in the Steyne, and Warnes Hotel was occupied by the Fourteenth Field Ambulance Regiment. It was said that more than two million troops waited on the coast from Kent to Dorset, so it was obvious that something big was about to happen.

  Somehow or other, Romare had managed to get two whole days off and Frankie swapped with another girl to get a forty-eight-hour pass. The plan had been for Romare to meet the family.

  Once on the farm, Romare was given Alan’s room and Frankie found herself back in her old childhood bedroom for the first time in over a year. They were determined to make the most of every second they had.

  ‘Anything you would particularly like to do?’ Frankie asked him when he had unpacked.

  ‘I should like to see the sea,’ he replied with a smile.

  They caught a bus down to the town but it was hugely altered. There were servicemen everywhere and hundreds of tanks lined the narrow East Worthing roads.

  ‘We’ll have to come back after the war so you can see Worthing at its best,’ Frankie told him as they strolled near the front. She slipped her arm through his.

  ‘I intend to,’ he said with a grin. ‘I shall walk my lovely wife right along here and when we reach the pier, I shall kiss her and tell her how much I love her.’

  Frankie lifted her face to his and smiled. ‘Lucky lady.’

  ‘Lucky guy,’ he said drawing her close and kissing her cheek.

  ‘So what do you think of my Aunt Bet and Uncle Lorry?’ she asked as they resumed their walk.

  ‘They’re really swell people,’ he said. ‘I can see why you speak so highly of them.’

  ‘They opened their hearts and their home to me,’ said Frankie. ‘I can never repay them for what they did.’

  ‘Frances,’ he scolded gently, using the name she never owned, ‘you can’t repay love. You just return it.’

  ‘Quite the philosopher, aren’t you,’ she teased.

  ‘Honey,’ he said in all seriousness, ‘you act like you don’t deserve to be loved.’ He’d touched a raw nerve and she felt her face flush. ‘Don’t try and work it out. You are loved. Love is a gift. Just enjoy it. They did what they did because they love you.’

  She could feel her eyes smarting.

  ‘And I love you too, Frankie. I know we hardly know each other but I feel like I’ve known you all my life.’ He turned to face her. ‘It won’t be easy, me being black and you being white. We’ll never be allowed to live in peace in the Southern States. Washington is a lot more tolerant, but mixed marriages are still pretty rare.’

  ‘It wouldn’t bother me,’ she said stoutly. ‘We can always live over here.’

  He smiled and, putting her hand back through his arm, they walked on. It was only as they walked in silence that Frankie began to understand how he might be feeling. She was confident that they’d be happy in this country but she had, in effect, asked him to sever his roots.

  ‘Is it because of your family?’ she said. ‘Surely they’d want you to be happy. You told me how much they sacrificed to send you to college.’

  She recalled the time when he’d shown her his photographs of a group of well dressed, happy people standing outside a drapery store. ‘There’s my mom and daddy,’ he’d said. ‘That’s my sister Selma, who got married in ’33, and my nephew, Jefferson, who is coming up for twelve.’ He grinned. ‘He’s a good boy. Always in a hurry. He’s going places, I reckon, and yes, he was on the way when she got married.’

  ‘Naughty girl,’ Frankie had teased.

  Romare stopped walking and pulled her into his arms again. ‘I do love you, Frankie,’ he said quietly. ‘You know that, don’t you?’ He dropped his head and kissed her cheek. As they walked on again, she had never felt so loved in her whole life – except maybe when her mother was still alive. That was a love that perhaps she had taken for granted. But now, after what he’d just told her, it dawned on her that she was loved by others too: not only Aunt Bet and Uncle Lorry but Alan and Ronald as well. She wiped a tear from her cheek with the palm of her hand.

  ‘You okay, honey?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was thick with emotion.

  ‘Frankie,’ he began again. ‘I want to ask you something, but I’m real scared you might have to say no.’

  ‘I don’t think I would say no,’ she said softly. They had stopped walking and were now standing facing each other. Romare chewed his bottom lip for a second, and then he spoke. ‘Will you marry me?’

  As she heard the words she’d so longed to hear, she thought to herself: every girl dreams of this kind of moment. There was no Hollywood music. All around them people were going about their daily business, but the place where they stood looking into each other’s eyes felt almost like hallowed ground. She reached up with her fingers and brushed his lips. ‘Oh yes, my darling. A thousand times yes.’ And then he kissed her.

  ‘You’re crying again,’ he said, stopping to look at her.

  ‘Because I’m happy,’ she said squeezing his arm and moving closer. ‘Wonderfully, deliriously happy.’

  The hours together sped by. Uncle Lorry took Romare for the obligatory pint at the local pub and while they were gone, Aunt Bet quizzed Frankie about her handsome doctor. ‘What if he takes you back to America after the war?’

>   ‘He tells me he’d prefer to live in England,’ said Frankie. ‘Besides, even if the military send him back, he says he has enough money of his own to return whenever he wants.’

  Aunt Bet nodded sagely. ‘Are you sure about marrying him?’

  ‘Positive,’ Frankie said. She saw her aunt look away. ‘I don’t care what other people think and neither should you. We are just two people in love.’

  Aunt Bet shook her head. ‘If only life was as simple as that.’

  The last thing Frankie wanted was to fall out with Aunt Bet so as she put the dirty crockery into the washing up bowl, she changed the subject. ‘Any news of Alan?’

  ‘Oh Frankie, you’ll never believe this but he’s training to be a cook.’

  ‘A cook!’ Frankie exclaimed. She filled the washing up bowl with hot water and tossed in some soda crystals.

  Aunt Bet nodded. ‘When he went back this last time he got called into the office. He had a long talk with the officer in charge and the upshot of it was that Alan was sent to the cookhouse. He loves it!’

  Frankie laughed out loud and then her face fell. ‘Oh, dear, does that mean he’ll be sent back to France when the big push comes?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Aunt Bet, picking up the tea towel to dry the dishes, ‘but an army marches on its stomach, so they say, so I imagine he’ll be in some field kitchen away from the fighting.’

  Frankie grinned. ‘The thought of Alan in an apron. Is he still in touch with Carrie?’

  Aunt Bet shrugged. ‘I suppose so. She opened a Post Office Savings Book for the little lad and I know Alan pays in so much a week. I’ve no idea how long he’ll keep it up but it will be a little something for the boy.’

  When Romare and Uncle Lorry came back from the pub, they seemed on very amicable terms. That night Frankie went to bed happy. Things had turned out better than she expected and once this terrible war was over, she and Romare could start a new life together.

  *

  Their final hours together went all too quickly. After breakfast, they caught the bus to Arundel. Romare was very impressed by the castle and the market square, calling it the stuff of fairy tales. They ate dinner in a small riverside café and caught the bus back to Worthing mid-afternoon. Frankie had loved every minute. They got off the bus in Broadwater because Frankie wanted to show Romare the house where she’d lived with her mother.

  ‘It’s very overgrown and run down,’ she explained, ‘but I want you to see the place where I grew up.’

  She had mixed feelings as she walked along the street. Part of her was wishing that she could turn the clock back and she imagined what it would have been like to say, ‘Mum, Dad, this is the man I love.’

  Someone walking behind them seemed to be quickening his or her step and as Frankie glanced back her heart skipped a beat. It was Sidney Knight. He caught up with them just before they reached the gate.

  ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ he sneered. ‘She was always one for the foreigners but at least her fancy man was white.’

  Frankie’s eyes blazed. ‘How dare you!’ she cried indignantly.

  ‘Bloody Russian,’ he said, pushing past. ‘I soon put a stop to him.’ He laughed sardonically. ‘Got the shock of his life.’

  ‘You can talk,’ Frankie retorted. ‘I remember how you used to harass my mother with your disgusting suggestions.’

  He glared at her and quickly coming back to the gate, he spat at her. Romare lurched forward as Frankie was left with a large globule of beery spittle running down her cheek. Sidney only just managed to slam the front door before Romare reached it.

  Thirty-Four

  Broadwater, Sussex, April 1944

  Barbara Vickers lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. Another tear trickled down her face and soaked into the pillow under her head. Her room was next door to the bathroom where she could hear Derek’s happy chuckling as her mother blew raspberries on his tummy. He was a happy little boy but Barbara’s heart was breaking. She wanted to barge through the door and shout, ‘Stop doing that. He’s my child. I should be the one making him laugh,’ but of course she couldn’t.

  It had been bad enough when her father came home on leave. Watching him dangling Derek on his knee and making plans for ‘his boy’ when he got back from the war was agony. Dad was so happy about Derek, but it was a lie. Derek wasn’t his son. He was his grandson. Barbara had been so stressed by the time Dad went back to the regiment that she was glad to see him go. She’d lost count of the number of times her mother had given her ‘that’ look; the look that said, I’m doing this for your own good; the look that said, don’t you dare tell anyone the truth, not even your father.

  What hurt the most was that her mother didn’t want her to even touch Derek. ‘You start cuddling him and you’ll give the game away,’ she’d said. ‘It’s best you let me do everything.’ Barbara had acquiesced but it was so, so difficult. It tore her apart. Every fibre of her being wanted to hold her son, to take him for walks, to read him a bedtime story, to blow raspberries on his tummy and make him laugh.

  She turned on her side and looked at the picture in the frame on her bedside table. A man in a dark dinner jacket smiled at her from under the glass. It wasn’t a real photograph, just the picture on the programme she’d bought when she’d gone to see his show at the Connaught Theatre. ‘Oh, Conrad,’ she whispered, ‘why, oh why don’t you write to me?’

  Her Basildon Bond was still on the dresser. She would write to him one more time, only this time she would send him a picture of their beautiful son. She was positive that as soon as he saw how like him Derek was, he would want to see him. She imagined the scene. Tall, dark and handsome, he’d be so repentant. ‘My darling,’ he’d say, ‘I’m so sorry I put you through all this. I’ve been foolish and cruel. Can you ever forgive me? Let me make amends with this fabulous fur coat just like the one Barbara Stanwyck wore in her latest film. Let me make amends with this engagement ring. Darling, please say you’ll wear my wedding ring …’

  With one eye still on her writing pad, she swung her legs over the bed and sat up. There was no time like the present. She’d write to Conrad now.

  The words didn’t come easily. She didn’t want to come over as critical. After an hour and countless wasted pages she finally had the form of words she wanted.

  My darling Conrad,

  I think of you all the time. It’s a marvellous thing you are doing for the war and I feel sure you will be richly rewarded. I have enclosed a photograph of our son. As you will see, he was a beautiful baby and so like his handsome daddy. He’s nearly four now and I’m sure that by the time you come home, he’ll run into his daddy’s arms. Take care sweetheart and I shall pray for you every night until you are home safe and sound.

  All my love, Barbara

  She heard her mother going downstairs. In a moment or two, she would creep along the corridor to her mother’s bedroom and kiss Derek goodnight just the way she had done ever since he was born.

  *

  Wareham, Dorset, June 1944

  Romare knew he was going to France. The first casualties of the invasion would be brought back to Britain for treatment but it was imperative to set up field hospitals on French and Belgian soil as quickly as possible to give the injured the best possible chance. The United States would still be segregating its men so it fell on his shoulders to ensure that every coloured soldier had a fair chance of survival. Romare rose to the challenge with his usual passion.

  Since his two-day stay in Broadwater, he’d realized just how much Frankie meant to him. He adored her and could hardly wait to make her his wife, but the final moments of his stay had given her a taste of what life might be like: a white girl married to a black man. When Sidney Knight spat on her, Frankie had been very upset and it was only because she’d begged him not to that Romare hadn’t kicked the door down and floored the guy.

  ‘I refuse to let that stupid ignoramus spoil our relationship,’ she’d said robustly, but the need to prot
ect her was almost overwhelming.

  Since that time, he and Frankie could only manage to snatch an hour or two here or half an hour there to be together but they made the most of it. Then, miracle of miracles, he managed to get almost a whole day at the beginning of June. Rumour had it that D-Day, as it was now called, might be on June 5th. For that reason, he knew this would be the last opportunity for them to be together for a long time.

  ‘Shall we do it now?’ he’d written in a letter, ‘or wait until I get back?’

  ‘Now,’ she’d replied. ‘Now, now, now …’

  So, having made all the arrangements, Romare asked Frankie to meet him in a market town called Wareham.

  The weather wasn’t that good: wet with a blustery wind. The clock on the turret of the red brick building was striking the hour as she rode her bike up South Street. He was waiting by the door, a small posy of flowers in his hand and a beaming smile on his face. When he took her in his arms, his kisses had never tasted so sweet.

  ‘I can hardly believe this is happening.’

  ‘It won’t be easy. Are you sure, honey?’

  Frankie frowned. ‘Of course I am.’

  She’d been over the moon when he’d said they should get married before he went to France but there was no time to arrange a proper wedding. She wrote and told Aunt Bet and Uncle Lorry but Wareham was miles away and it was difficult to find a civilian train these days.

  He smiled mysteriously. ‘There’s a special surprise waiting inside.’

  ‘What?’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Wait and see,’ he said.

  Romare put his hand gently onto her back to encourage her through the doors and there in the foyer stood Aunt Bet, Uncle Lorry, and Barbara.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve come all this way,’ Frankie cried happily.

  ‘I wouldn’t miss the wedding of the year!’ said Barbara with a chuckle.

  ‘You look so happy,’ said Aunt Bet, as she pinned a corsage onto Frankie’s lapel. ‘Your mum would have been so proud.’