by Pam Weaver
There were several other weddings taking place: happy brides in gowns, other brides in uniforms like herself and a scattering of pregnant brides so Frankie and Romare had to wait for their turn until the registrar called their group into a small room.
‘I wish your folks could have been here too,’ she whispered for his ears only.
Her husband-to-be pulled her close. ‘They would have been here if it weren’t for this damned war,’ he said. ‘We mustn’t let that spoil the happiest day of our lives.’
‘I know,’ she began, ‘but …’
‘No buts,’ he said firmly.
Once inside the town hall, and now a married woman, Frankie hugged Aunt Bet and Uncle Lorry. ‘I hope it’s not too much of a shock for you seeing us here,’ said Aunt Bet, wiping what she called ‘a speck of dust’ from her eye. ‘He swore us to secrecy.’
‘Good job I said yes then,’ Frankie quipped and they all laughed.
Uncle Lorry took a couple of pictures with his box Brownie and then they all walked to the nearest pub for a few sandwiches and a celebratory drink.
*
A little while later, between the showers, the newly-weds went for a walk along the banks of the river Frome. It was a bit cold for the time of year but they hardly noticed.
‘I have another surprise from you,’ Romare said as he took some keys out of his pocket and jangled them in front of her face.
Frankie was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘A doctor friend of mine owns a house just off the high street,’ he said lacing his fingers through hers. ‘It’s ours for today if you would like.’
‘Oh Romare,’ she whispered.
He kissed her tenderly. ‘Are you ready for me, my lovely English rose?’
‘Yes my darling,’ she said breathily. ‘I’m ready.’
Hand in hand they turned back towards the main shopping area but they hadn’t gone far before a voice called out, ‘Doctor Delaney? Is that you?’
Romare turned to see a man leaning out of the driver’s window of an old van. Frankie recognized him at once. The man stopped the engine and jumped out onto the street in front of them. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
‘Forgive me,’ said Romare, ‘but I don’t.’
‘Bert Harper. You saved my boy’s life on the tube train that night,’ said the man lifting a grimy hat towards Frankie. ‘Afternoon, Miss,’ and looking from one to the other he added, ‘’E was a ruddy marvel, ’e was. My little lad was choking on a bit ’f bread my ’ld mother gave ’im. Couldn’t get ’is breath. I tell you, I was scared out ’f me wits I was. But the ’ld doc here, he grabbed him round the waist and give ’m such a jerk, the bit ’f bread flew right out of ’s mouth, just like that.’
Frankie gazed admiringly towards her husband. ‘I know. I was there.’
‘’Ere,’ said Bert, ‘let me buy you both a drink.’
‘I’m afraid we’re in a bit of a hurry right now, Bert,’ said Romare.
‘Whatever it is it can wait,’ Bert insisted. ‘I wants a chance to say fank you.’ He glanced up at the town hall clock which said one twenty-five. ‘We’ve just got a moment before closing time.’ And with that, he bundled them into the nearest pub.
They found a seat by the old fireplace and Bert headed towards the bar.
‘I’m sorry, honey,’ Romare said when he’d gone.
She clasped his hands. ‘It’s fine,’ she said gently. ‘How could you refuse? He was so excited to see you.’
Bert reappeared with two glasses of beer and a sherry on a tray. ‘Your very good ’ealth, doc,’ he said, raising his glass.
The men drank deeply. ‘And how is your son now, Bert?’ asked Romare.
‘Doing fine,’ Bert said proudly. ‘Top of the class at school and the life and soul of the party at ’ome.’
Romare smiled. ‘I’m glad.’ He drank more beer. ‘So what are you doing down here?’
‘Came to see a man about a dog,’ Bert said, thumbing his nose.
Romare seemed a little confused but didn’t ask what he meant.
‘You going over with the Big Push?’ Bert went on.
‘You know I can’t answer that, Bert,’ said Romare.
The man nodded. Frankie brushed some confetti from her sleeve.
‘You been to a wedding?’
Romare nodded. ‘Ours.’
For a split second, Bert seemed uncomfortable, then recovering himself quickly, he said, ‘Well, it was grand seeing you again, Doc. All the best to you both and I’m glad I had the chance to buy you a drink.’
Romare held his glass up as a toast. ‘Thank you and I wish you all the best as well.’
Frankie finished her sherry and Bert stood to his feet before shaking their hands again. ‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’
‘We aren’t going far,’ said Romare. ‘We’ve a little cottage just around the corner.’
The three of them parted with a final handshake on the street and set off in opposite directions. The cottage turned out to be a delightful grey stone building just off the main thoroughfare and down a small cul-de-sac. Romare opened the door and, to Frankie’s amusement and delight, he lifted her into his arms to carry her inside. When he set her on her feet, they kissed with growing passion. Eventually they broke off and he took her by the hand and walked her upstairs. He undressed her gently, not rushing her. Finally she stood naked before him. He had been taking his own things off at the same time and at last he drew her gently towards him. She recalled Arlene’s story about thinking she could feel the man’s pencil. There could be no such mistake concerning her husband’s body. She shivered. He had much more than a pencil.
‘Are you sure about this, honey?’
She nodded. She had the impression that had she shaken her head and said ‘no’, although he would have been disappointed, he would have respected her wishes. His hand moved gently down from her waist to her hips until it rested for a moment between her legs. Her heart was pounding as she felt every cell in her body yielding to the most delicious feeling. A moment later, he lifted her onto the bed and lay beside her. When he finally mounted her, she was totally relaxed and happy. They made love until the room grew dark as dusk fell.
Bert wasn’t a happy man. He’d come all this bleedin’ way but the big Yank had nothing much to offer. He agreed to take some fags but what could he do with baseballs and American football shirts? Nobody this side of the ocean played those games. Besides, as soon as he got them out of the bag, the punters would know they was nicked.
‘I saw you with some guy when I drove up,’ the big man said.
‘Doc Delaney,’ said Bert getting out his money for the fags. ‘Cracking bloke. He saved my boy’s life, ’e did.’ He treated the Big Yank to the story, this time embellished with plenty of wringing hands and desperate cries. ‘Ruddy marvel ’e was.’
The big man curled his lip. ‘He was with a white woman.’
‘Just got married,’ said Bert. He glanced up at the big man. ‘You got a problem with that?’
‘Just asking. Where did they go?’
Bert shrugged. ‘A cottage, he said. Not too far away. I saw them turn down there, by the phone box.’
The transaction done, the two men parted. As he watched the big man get back into his jeep, Bert had an uneasy feeling that perhaps he shouldn’t have told him so much about the Doc. He wasn’t too sure about English girls marrying them himself but some of these Yanks could be really nasty to the coloureds.
Thirty-Five
The day had passed all too quickly. They had made love, slept a little then made love again.
‘Thank you for getting Aunt Bet and Uncle Lorry to come to our wedding,’ Frankie whispered. ‘And Barbara too.’
‘It wouldn’t have been the same without them,’ said Romare. He was tracing the line of her jaw with his finger. It was a deliciously sexy feeling. ‘Your aunt did try to get hold of Alan and Ronald but they couldn’t make it.’ He looked into her face. �
��They wanted to,’ he added, ‘but …’
‘I heard on the radio that all leave is cancelled,’ she said. ‘I’m just glad you were able to come. It would have been a funny wedding with no bridegroom.’
He grinned. ‘And even worse without the bride.’ They kissed again.
Afterwards, making use of the two dressing gowns they found hanging on the back of the bedroom door, they went downstairs. To their great surprise and delight, they found a prepared meal waiting for them in the kitchen. There was a note beside a water glass from Romare’s doctor friend wishing them well and hoping they enjoyed their brief stay in his home. He must have arranged for his cleaning lady to leave the food for them earlier in the day. Romare was visibly moved by his kindness. He and Frankie ate their meal and talked of their future.
‘It’s not going to be easy for you when I’m posted, Frankie,’ he began.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, but she sighed. ‘Oh, I wish your family could have been at our wedding.’
‘I thought about sending them the fare but it’s not safe at the moment,’ he said. ‘Time enough to meet up when the war is over.’
‘Or we could go to visit them.’
He nodded. ‘We’d better go before I have a family of my own.’
She blushed modestly and laughed.
The meal over, they had just over an hour before Romare had to be on his way.
‘Where exactly are you going abroad?’ she asked. ‘Do I need to worry about you?’
He grasped her hand and kissed her fingers. ‘You know I can’t tell you but no, you don’t need to worry about me. I shall be working in a safe place.’
She nodded grimly and clenched her lips together to stop them from trembling. She understood what he meant. He was going over to France and would be in some field hospital a few miles from the front. Safe, but not completely safe. Her eyes glistened with tears. He leaned forward and kissed her. ‘I’ll never stop thinking about you,’ he assured her, ‘and I will come back.’
She held his face in her hands. ‘Every night I shall look up at the stars and send you my love.’
‘And you’ll hear me saying “Goodnight Sweetheart”,’ he whispered into her ear.
She smiled wanly and he rose to his feet but instead of clearing the table as they had planned, he led her back upstairs. They took off their dressing gowns but they did not make love. They lay in each other’s arms, just looking at each other and sharing a kiss now and again.
‘You have made me so happy,’ he whispered. ‘My lovely English rose.’
‘And you have made me very happy too.’
Back in Worthing, things were not so good for Sidney Knight. He’d managed to get out of national conscription, but it had cost him dearly. The doctor who had written the false certificate to avoid a Compulsory Work Order had charged him an arm and a leg. The gee-gees still hadn’t been kind to him. The Grand National hadn’t run since 1940 and the racecourse had been turned into an Italian POW camp. What sacrilege! Sidney had to resort to illegal meetings and betting in pubs and clubs. It was a risky business with police raids and the threat of heavy fines if he was caught.
He got by but he was definitely on a downward slide. He did the occasional scam and sometimes he was asked to forge a signature. Lean pickings – but suddenly he had the most extraordinary stroke of luck. Whist doing house clearance on a bomb site for a local firm, there was an accident on the road outside. A child had run across in front of a Post Office van. The driver screeched to a stop but swerved at the same time, hitting the side of Sidney’s lorry. Then the car following behind ran into the nearside of the GPO van. In the chaos which followed, Sidney and a passer-by managed to get the rear car away from the Post Office van so that they could open the buckled driver’s door and get the occupant out. Sidney would be the first to admit he didn’t have the stomach for blood and gore so he kept well away while the medics attended to the casualty. That’s when everything changed. Everyone’s attention was either on the child (not badly hurt but very noisy), the hysterical mother, the driver of the GPO van who was protesting his innocence, or the elderly driver who had run into the back of him. Nobody, except Sidney, had noticed that the back door of the GPO van had burst open and that there were several mail bags inside.
By the time everyone had either been taken to hospital or the police station, the incident was over. Someone else from the Post Office arrived to put the mail bags into another van before the one involved in the accident was towed away. The postman thanked him for his help and drove off leaving Sidney to drive his lorry home. What no-one knew was that Sidney had squirreled away two mail bags under an old army blanket in the back.
Romare glanced at the clock on the bedside table. ‘Better go.’
Frankie’s stomach fell away. So it was over. This beautiful time they’d shared had come to an end. She wanted to cling to him, beg him not to go, suggest they run away, but of course she wouldn’t. He had a duty; in fact they both had a duty which had to come first. As he got up and went to the bathroom she lay on her side and looked around the room. She wanted to remember everything about this place. The wallpaper, the curtains, the bed covers, the funny old chair in front of the dressing table where she’d folded her clothes. The memory would have to sustain her for perhaps a very long time. This was the room where she’d lost her virginity … no, the room where she had surrendered her precious virginity to the only man she had ever loved. This was the room where she had become a woman for the first time. The décor might be a little old-fashioned, perhaps even dowdy, but to her it was a beautiful place.
He came back into the room and leaned over the bed to kiss her again. She responded, then, dressed only in her petticoat, headed for the bathroom. A shuffling noise downstairs made her turn her head and her heart almost stopped. There was someone at the bottom of the stairs. She knew instantly it was a man although she couldn’t see his face. He was wearing some sort of white hood. As she took in her breath noisily, he looked up and their eyes met. There was an air of menace about him. Panicked, she screamed and ran back to the bedroom. ‘Romare, there’s man with a white bag on his head downstairs.’
He looked up startled, and at the same time they heard several heavy pairs of footsteps on the stairs and the landing. Romare only had enough time to pull her protectively behind him before three men burst into the bedroom. Frankie screamed.
All of them were wearing identical hoods, one of which looked suspiciously like an empty flour bag, over their heads. Only their eyes were visibly behind ragged eye holes cut into the fabric. The first man swung a heavy piece of wood at Romare who only just managed to duck out of the way.
‘Jim Crow don’t sleep with white women,’ the man snarled and Frankie recognised his voice straight away. It was Lyman Spinks. ‘You know the rules, boy.’
Now she could see that the wood he was holding was in fact a baseball bat. He swung it again and she heard it crack against Romare’s jaw. Her husband reeled from the blow and with a terrible cry of pain, turned sharply away from the bat and caught his head on the leg of the iron bedpost before he slumped to the floor.
‘Romare,’ she cried helplessly. ‘Oh God, what have you done? Romare, Romare!’
Spinks pulled her away roughly, his snake ring digging painfully into the flesh of her arm and at the same time, the other two hooded men stepped forward and grabbed Romare by the arms, hauled him to his feet and dragged him out of the room. Desperate to help him, Frankie tried to get past the bulk that was Spinks’ body. ‘No, no,’ she was screaming. ‘Stop it! What are you doing?’
Spinks flung her against the dressing table as casually as he would throw a garment onto a chair.
‘You’ve no right to do this,’ she shouted defiantly as she pulled herself to her feet.
‘That dog raped you,’ Spinks said coldly. ‘Back home we have a way of dealing with rabid dogs.’
‘He did not rape me!’ Frankie shrieked. ‘I was willing and furthermore …’ She di
dn’t get to finish her sentence.
‘Willing?’ he roared. ‘You were willing?’ His voice was filled with contempt and loathing. ‘Woman, shut your Goddamn filthy mouth. You disgust me, you good-for-nothing whore.’
She saw him raise the baseball bat again and everything went black.
‘Time, gentlemen, please.’
The landlord’s call had everybody rushing to the bar for one last pint. Bert had enjoyed a great evening. He was slightly tipsy and he’d made a bob or two selling under the counter nylons at half a crown a pair. In fact he’d done so well, he didn’t have more than a dozen pairs to take back home so the trip hadn’t been such a waste of time after all. Fifteen minutes later as they all piled outside, it was eerily quiet. The tanks which had been lined up all along the streets when he went into the Duke of Wellington were gone.
‘Looks like something’s happening at last,’ a voice said behind him.
Bert said his goodbyes and walked towards his van. He was driving steadily down the high street when he saw two men in peculiar hats bundle another man into the back of a jeep. Their victim was struggling to get away but one of the assailants punched him in the goolies which rendered him motionless.
Rather than simply drive on past, something made Bert slow to a halt. The blackout made it hard to see clearly but when a third man carrying some sort of weapon appeared, Bert knew something was up. Somebody settling an old score perhaps? A gangland feud? He decided to keep out of it until the third man pulled the white hood off his head and Bert recognised the Big Man. Bert’s heart skipped a beat. What the hell was he doing? The jeep drove off at a pace and it was only as Bert followed them that he realised that this could be near the cottage where the doc was staying. His blood ran cold. The Big Man had asked him an awful lot about the doc. Had he unwittingly put him in danger?
The jeep headed out of town. Bert followed it at a distance. The combination of the dark night, the lack of decent headlights, the booze and trying to concentrate was giving him a headache. The jeep slowed to a halt and stopped. Bert stopped too. For a second his heart was in his mouth in case they’d spotted him, but luckily they hadn’t. A moment later, he saw them dragging someone into the woods. The bloke was still struggling but he was powerless against the three Yanks. Bert reversed into a gate entrance and parked his van. By now, the cold night air and his growing unease had made him stone cold sober. He made his way into the woods, guided by their voices and laid low about thirty yards away. In the gloom he could just make out the three men standing by a large oak tree. They were sharing a hip flask and laughing. Bert wanted to charge up to them and demand to know what they’d done with the other man but he didn’t dare. He was no match for those boys. They were twice the size he was. They hung around for several minutes, maybe as much as ten or fifteen, then they all shook hands and headed back towards the road. A few minutes later, he heard the jeep turning around and driving off.
