by Nancy Revell
‘Which was what?’ Helen said.
‘His name.’ Dr Parker laughed. Helen was certainly not with it this evening.
‘Oh, his name?’ Helen said, standing up. ‘Alexander something or other … Sorry, John, I just need to go and powder my nose.’
John watched as she made her way to the Ladies. His weren’t the only pair of eyes on her. Helen drew admiring looks everywhere she went.
When she came back, Dr Parker noticed she had applied some lipstick.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked. ‘You seem a bit preoccupied this evening?’
‘Do I?’ Helen sat down and took a rather large gulp of her vodka.
‘So, no real update on a certain someone’s lineage, then?’ Dr Parker said, keeping his voice low, not that he really needed to. The pub was full. And full meant loud.
Helen smiled.
‘Nothing definite, but my little Miss Marple is slowly but surely squirrelling away. She’ll get there in the end, I’m sure of it. She’s that kind of person.’
‘What kind is that?’
‘Determined. Like a dog with a bone. Won’t let go until she’s got what she wants.’ Helen took a sip of the drink. ‘Don’t be fooled by that veneer of childlike vulnerability … Anyway, enough of my life. I want to hear what’s been happening at the Ryhope and if you and your Dr Eris have managed to fix any more bodies and minds?’
‘Well, yes, I hope so. There’s been a definite improvement in young Jacob since he’s been seeing Dr Eris. His amputation’s healing up nicely as well, which is always good to see.’
Helen immediately felt sad. She had never met ‘young Jacob’, but her heart bled for him having to go through the rest of his life with such a disability. No wonder he needed help keeping his sanity.
‘We’ll need a lot more Dr Erises about when this war does finally come to an end,’ Dr Parker prophesised. Helen could hear that John admired the new psychologist. They seemed to get on well.
‘And how’s Polly doing?’ Dr Parker said, changing the subject.
‘Yes, all’s going well, from what I can gather,’ replied Helen.
He watched Helen’s reaction carefully. He still wasn’t sure what her real feelings were about the news that Polly and Tommy were having a baby.
‘And I’m guessing Tommy knows now?’ Dr Parker probed. He’d thought about the impact of Polly’s pregnancy quite a lot since Helen had told him the news. Was it a bit of a double blow? Not only was the man she loved about to have a family, but Helen was still recovering from the loss of her own baby.
‘Oh, he sounds over the moon,’ Helen said. ‘Gloria was telling me he’d finally got Polly’s letter – apparently it took ages to reach him. He wrote back straight away, telling Polly to be careful and take it easy.’
Helen took a sip of her drink and suddenly laughed.
‘He even suggested she join Bel doing office work if she really felt the need to keep on working, which, according to Gloria, was met with complete hilarity.’
Dr Parker chuckled. He’d got to know Polly a little over the past six months and even he could tell she was not one to be working in an office.
‘And how are you feeling about it?’ he asked tentatively.
After learning more about the complexity of the mind from Dr Eris, he’d come to realise that Helen was still ‘in recovery’. She probably didn’t realise it herself, but the very fact that she had been obsessing about the gender of her baby was evidence she had not got over her loss.
‘I’m fine … I feel fine about it,’ Helen said, a slightly puzzled look on her face. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I just wondered,’ Dr Parker said, suddenly uncomfortable, ‘because of what happened to you last year.’
Helen’s face became sad.
‘Oh, John, I think the chats with your “head doctor” might be making you overthink things. I’m fine. Honestly.’ She looked at the people in the bar. ‘I’ve not given it a lot of thought, to be truthful. I probably expected it. I mean, they were “living in sin” before they got married.’
Dr Parker looked at Helen. At those eyes. She was either a damn good actress, or she was in denial.
Helen took a deep breath. This was the perfect opening for her to chat about what she had wanted to talk about all evening.
‘Listen to me – “living in sin”. I sound like some preacher. I suppose in this day and age, with everything that’s happening in the world, you wouldn’t think people would care so much about that kind of thing, would you?’
Helen forced out a light-hearted laugh.
‘You know, getting married in white and all that?’
Helen looked at John.
‘What do you think?’
‘Mmm, it’s hard to tell, but my guess is that it’s still important. I don’t think the war has changed our views that much.’
Helen was just opening her mouth to ask if he thought it was important to be virtuous before marriage when the bell for last orders sounded out.
‘Honestly, where does the time go?’ Dr Parker stood up. ‘I’m getting these in.’
Before Helen had time to object, he was on his feet and making his way to the bar.
A few minutes later he was back.
‘Thank you,’ Helen said as he put the drinks on the table.
‘So, what were we saying?’ he asked as he sat down.
‘How the war has changed our views – or rather if it has,’ she said, taking a sip of her drink. ‘Do you think we’re getting less puritanical? More liberal?’
‘Good question,’ Dr Parker said. ‘I do think there’s no denying women’s role in society is changing. I mean, look at your women welders. That would have been unheard of before the war. That in itself must be making people – men and women – change the way they think and feel.’
Helen nodded her agreement, wondering how she could manipulate the conversation back to women in white as opposed to women welders.
She should just come out and say it: John, would you consider courting a sullied woman?
‘Goodness me,’ Dr Parker suddenly perked up. ‘I completely forgot to ask you – how did your meeting with Mr Thompson go?’
‘Oh, it went really well,’ Helen said.
She took a sip of her drink, realising her window of opportunity had gone.
‘He basically said, in a roundabout way, that he would be keen for me to take over from Harold when the time comes.’
‘Well, that’s brilliant,’ Dr Parker said. ‘That would be a promotion and a half, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would,’ Helen mused, ‘but, to be honest, I can’t see Harold taking retirement voluntarily, and I also can’t see Mr Thompson pushing him into early retirement. Still, it’s good that I’m being considered as the person to step into his shoes eventually.’
‘And what was it that gave you the push to see him?’ Dr Parker asked. Helen had been keen to see the big boss since the launch of Brutus, which had coincided with the yard hitting a thirty-six-year production record.
‘Actually, it was something Polly said at Arthur’s funeral.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Dr Parker was intrigued.
‘She was telling me how Tommy had been asking the old man for advice; he didn’t know what to do about Polly – whether he should just let her go, so she’d be free.’
Helen looked at John’s face and laughed. ‘I know! As if that would have made her happy.’
Dr Parker wondered if it might, however, have made Helen happy.
‘Anyway, Arthur said that if Flo, Tommy’s grandmother, were still alive, she’d tell Tommy that if he wanted something, he should just go and get it.’ Helen took a sip of her drink. ‘And I thought, she’s right.’
Dr Parker nodded. ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at life.’ He wanted to add that such advice was worth taking, but only if the object of the other person’s desire was keen to be acquired. ‘Come on, let me walk you home.’
Dr Parker expected to hear Hel
en’s usual objection that she was perfectly capable of walking herself home, so he was surprised when she simply got up, grabbed her handbag and gas mask and said, ‘All right, then.’
Perhaps she’d known he would insist.
‘What a lovely evening.’ Helen looked up at the inky-black sky as they left the pub and started walking along Victor Street.
Dr Parker was about to agree and comment on how remarkably quiet it was when the calm was interrupted by the familiar wailing of the air raid sirens.
‘Oh, blast!’ Helen shouted. ‘You’ll just have to come back to mine. Our basement’s about as safe as it gets.’
‘No, you get yourself home,’ Dr Parker shouted back. ‘I’m going back into town … If we get a pasting, I want to be at the Royal to help out.’
‘It’s not worth the risk,’ Helen panicked. ‘You might get hurt.’
Dr Parker let out a hollow laugh.
‘Just like all our boys serving on the front line might get hurt … Get home. Get safe, you hear?’ he said leaning in and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
‘Be careful,’ Helen said, nearly kissing him on the lips but stopping herself at the last moment.
‘Go!’ Dr Parker commanded.
Only when Helen had turned and started to hurry up Zetland Street and into the darkness did he run back down the road and into Dame Dorothy Street.
Seeing an army truck heading towards town, he waved it down.
‘I’m a doctor,’ he yelled at the driver.
Seconds later, the passenger door had slammed shut and the truck was heading towards the Wearmouth Bridge just as the first bombs dropped.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Pickering & Sons, Bridge Street, Sunderland
The following day Monday 15 March
Georgina was sitting at the dining-room table with the morning edition of the Sunderland Echo laid out in front of her.
‘Oh dear, Father, it looks as though this one’s been the worst yet. Worse even than the Tatham Street bombing.’
‘How many dead?’ Mr Pickering asked as he shuffled his way across the large, high-ceilinged room to the table and eased himself into his chair. He was wearing what he always wore – his green and brown tweed three-piece suit that had seen better days, and a dicky bow which seemed to have a will of its own.
‘Seventeen killed, thirty-one seriously injured and sixty-one with minor injuries.’ Georgina quoted the figures from the article. ‘It says here thousands of homes and businesses were damaged, some made totally uninhabitable. Well over a hundred have had to be demolished.’
Mr Pickering shook his head, his face a mixture of sadness and anger.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Georgina said, her eyes glued to the newspaper. ‘A landmine hit Union Street and moved the Empress Hotel six inches!’
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Mr Pickering said, pausing for a moment as he poured himself a cup of tea from the pot his daughter had made.
‘Two Fire Guards died – a Mr Ernest Johnson of Peebles Road and Mr John William Simpson of Ward Street.’ Georgina looked up at her father to see if he knew the men. Thankfully, he didn’t. ‘Honestly, there’s going to be nothing left of the town if it carries on like this.’
She read on silently.
‘I do wonder whether we should move out to the country,’ Mr Pickering said. He looked around the room that had once been so full of life. Now, with his two sons at war and his wife long since passed away, the place was beginning to resemble a mausoleum.
‘No, Father, Jerry isn’t going to force us out of our own home. Have us scampering off like scared rabbits to hide in the hills.’
Mr Pickering looked at his daughter. He knew she wasn’t being entirely truthful. Her resolution to stay put was just as much because she couldn’t bear to leave the home where she had been brought up.
‘I’m going to do us some toast.’ Georgina stood up. Before she left the room, she went over to the sideboard, picked up a dog-eared blue file and took it over to her father.
‘Here’s what I’ve got so far on the Havelock case. See what you think. I won’t be a minute.’
Mr Pickering pulled his wire-rimmed spectacles from his head, took a sip of his black tea and opened the file.
Five minutes later his daughter was back with a breakfast tray made up of a rack of toast, a small knob of butter and an almost empty jar of marmalade; they both spread it sparingly as they had nearly used up their monthly rations and still had a week to go.
They ate in silence. Mr Pickering went over his daughter’s neatly handwritten notes, while Georgina continued to pour over the contents of the Sunderland Echo, nibbling occasionally on her toast.
‘This job seems to be dragging on rather,’ Mr Pickering finally said, looking up at Georgina over his half-moon spectacles. ‘You’re not perchance dragging this out longer than necessary, are you? Clocking up the hours and driving up the fee?’ He gave his daughter a reprimanding look. ‘Because if you are, I don’t approve.’
‘Honestly, Father, as if I’d do something so underhand.’ She put her half-eaten toast back on her plate and brushed her hands together. She then got up, went over to the sideboard where she had left her handbag and rooted out the cheque Helen had given her.
‘That family’s got more money than sense,’ she said, putting the retainer down in front of her father. ‘That’ll keep us going for a little while.’
Mr Pickering looked at the amount and then pushed it aside.
Georgina thought she’d glimpsed disdain on her father’s face.
‘Just watch that family,’ he said, topping up his tea.
Georgina noticed his hands were shaking. She forced herself not to jump up and help him pour. Her father hated being fussed over.
‘They’re a strange lot,’ he said, ‘the Havelocks. Always have been. And always will be, in my opinion.’
Georgina looked at her father. It was unusual for him to deride others.
‘Something tells me you know more about the Havelocks than you’re letting on.’ She stretched across the table and topped up her own cup.
Mr Pickering blew on his tea but didn’t take a drink.
‘Come on, Father. It’s not like you to hold out. Especially on a job.’
Still, her father was quiet.
‘I need to know everything and anything about this family,’ Georgina said, ‘if I’m to get to the bottom of this puzzle. And you know how difficult paternity cases are to prove. I don’t need my own father holding out on me.’
Mr Pickering looked at Georgina.
He took a long sup of tea.
Georgina waited.
Finally, her father spoke.
‘When I was a boy, Charles – Mr Havelock – was known as an expert horseman. It’s probably hard to see that now he’s so old.’ Another short pause. ‘I used to see him riding his horse around Backhouse Park.’
Mr Pickering put his teacup down.
‘I’ll never forget seeing him on his black steed – beautiful she was. A mare. Lovely white muzzle. Glossy black coat … I watched entranced from afar as horse and rider got nearer and nearer. I remember feeling awed at what I thought was a beautiful sight … Man and horse. In total unison. Galloping across the park.
‘I thought the horse was sweating … The nearer they got, the more I could see. Charles’s blond hair was swept back away from his face. I kept looking, my heart in my mouth, as they jumped a small mound of logs. They came closer and finally I saw …’
Georgina looked at her father and could see the glint of tears.
‘I could still cry now at the sight,’ he said. ‘The mare’s beautiful flank was ripped to ribbons of red – for one childish moment I thought they were ribbons, until I saw the blood.
‘I looked into her beautiful black eyes and that’s when my heart truly did break. They were full of fear and pain. I’d never seen such terror in an animal. Before or after.’
‘Oh God.’ Georgina had put her own cup b
ack in its saucer. She could feel the prick of tears herself.
‘But what shocked me even more,’ Mr Pickering continued, ‘was the look of sheer evil on Charles’s face. His eyes were demonic, his face splattered with the spray of the mare’s blood. I swear to God, that day I saw the devil himself.’
Mr Pickering pulled out his pipe from his top pocket.
Stuffing it with tobacco, he lit it and started puffing, as though to expunge the vision of true evil that had stayed with him his whole life.
He looked at his daughter. His only daughter. And worry crept to the fore.
‘You’ll find the answers to all your questions in that house, Georgina … Just be careful. And whatever you do – stay clear of that man. He might be old, but don’t let that fool you.
‘He mightn’t be able to whip a horse half to death any more, but sadists like him will always find ways to hurt and torment.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Thank God you’re all right,’ Helen said. She had the phone pressed to her ear. ‘I’ve been worried sick all night. Haven’t slept a wink. You are all right, aren’t you?’
Helen was sitting at her desk, stroking Winston, who was nuzzling her legs.
‘Yes, yes, Helen, I’m fine. Honestly,’ Dr Parker reassured her. ‘You really shouldn’t worry. No harm’s going to come to me. Are you all right?’
‘Of course. I stayed down in the cellar until the all-clear. I went to have a chat to some of the wardens afterwards – they said all the bombs had dropped over on the south side.’
Helen took a drag of the cigarette that she’d left burning in the ashtray.
‘What happened after you left me? Did you get to the Royal in time?’
‘Yes, just. Good job I went there. The Children’s Hospital had to be evacuated. Thank God none of them were harmed. As if the poor mites haven’t had enough to contend with. We got most of them settled down in the basement – managed to get the more seriously ill ones hooked up to drips and give them the pain relief they needed. The Royal took in about thirty. I think they managed to get another twenty over to Monkwearmouth.’
