Christmas with the Shipyard Girls Read online

  Tommy looked at Polly as his brain registered what she was saying.

  Then he let out a loud guffaw.

  ‘That’s what you’ve been so worried about telling me?’ he asked, cupping her tear-stained face in his hands.

  Polly nodded.

  ‘Honestly,’ he said, letting out a huge sigh of relief, ‘I thought yer were gonna tell me you’d been off with someone else.’ He kissed her on the lips. He kissed her again and she kissed him back.

  ‘No. Never! I’ve never even looked at another man, never mind been off with one!’

  ‘Or you’d got cold feet. Changed yer mind about getting married.’

  Polly laughed through the tears.

  ‘Oh, Tommy, if only you knew. The hours I spent wishing we’d got married before you left. I meant every word I said that day about getting married as soon as possible. I just felt so awful about giving away your pay. I didn’t know how to tell you.’

  Tommy moved his chair so that it was next to Polly’s and put his arms around her.

  ‘First ’n foremost, yer must not feel guilty about giving away my pay. I don’t give two hoots about money. Never have done ’n never will.

  ‘On top of which it’s never sat easily with me earning money from being at war. Probably why I didn’t want to spend any of it.’

  Tommy smiled.

  ‘Actually, I’m glad you’ve given it away.’

  Polly batted away his words. He was just trying to make her feel better.

  ‘Yer know, Pol,’ Tommy said. ‘Yer must never feel guilty about having given up hope that I was still alive.’

  He had seen the pain and guilt etched onto Polly’s face when she had told him.

  He kissed the top of her head and squeezed her.

  ‘Yer had every right to give up hope. There was nothing wrong with that. I don’t know why yer felt so bad about it.’

  He leant back a little so that he could look at Polly.

  ‘Sometimes, yer know, you have to give up hope. It’s not being defeatist. I know this might sound odd, but sometimes yer have to give up hope to keep going, to move on and carry on living.’

  His face became serious.

  ‘And yer know, if anything were to happen to me at any time in the future, yer must carry on. Yer must live yer life.’

  Polly pulled away and looked at him.

  ‘Well, I won’t have to, will I?’ she said. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you. You’re here now and we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives.’

  Tommy gave Polly a look she couldn’t quite fathom, before his face broke into a smile and the twinkle returned to his eyes.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Come on, tell me who yer gave the money to?’

  The canteen had closed for the evening, but the staff had spotted Polly and Tommy while they were clearing up and had seen that whatever they were talking about was serious. They’d left the lights on and asked Polly and Tommy to flick them off and close the door on their way out.

  Feeling more relaxed now her secret was out, it was easier to tell him exactly what she had done with his pay.

  Tommy wasn’t one for tears, but Polly could have sworn he was holding back when she explained that a portion of the money had gone to the Red Cross. He stopped her talking and kissed her with such tenderness that it took her aback.

  When she told him about the King George’s Fund for Sailors, a big smile replaced the sadness.

  ‘That’s exactly who I would have given it to,’ he declared. ‘I’m so glad you thought to give them a share.’

  When Polly told him that the rest of the money had gone to the local girl who was going to be fitted with artificial hands, his eyes once again teared up and he took her in his arms and kissed her.

  ‘Pollyanna Henrietta Elliot,’ he said, looking at her proudly. ‘I didn’t think it was possible to love yer any more than I have done these past two years, but I do. I am so proud of yer. So proud.’

  Polly forced back the tears. The love she felt for this man was overwhelming.

  In the quietness of the canteen they kissed and then kissed some more, before Tommy pulled away and looked at Polly.

  ‘So, when we gonna get married?’

  ‘Yer working late, pet?’ Mrs Killochan the cleaner stuck her head round the door to Dr Parker’s office.

  Dr Parker smiled. Mrs Killochan called everyone ‘pet’ regardless of where they were in the hospital hierarchy.

  ‘I am, Mrs Killochan,’ Dr Parker said, keeping his hand on the page he was reading. ‘Don’t worry about the office. I’m sure no harm will come from leaving it another day.’

  The cleaner eyed the desk covered in stacks of books and files, and then at the floor, which was catering for the overspill.

  ‘Not that I can ever get at anything to clean anyways,’ Mrs Killochan huffed good-naturedly.

  ‘I’ll try and have a tidy-up tomorrow,’ Dr Parker promised.

  The old woman laughed.

  ‘Aye, you do that,’ she said. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’

  She chuckled.

  ‘I’ll leave yer to it, pet,’ she said, shutting the door.

  Dr Parker looked back at the page he’d been reading. It had taken him ages to find what he had been looking for. He’d asked his colleagues, but they’d all shaken their heads and admitted their extensive knowledge of human biology did not extend to this particular area. He had even rung a specialist in London, who had offered his opinion. But it was just that – an opinion. There had been no documented cases on the effects of deep-sea diving following a splenectomy.

  Reading the few paragraphs he had found just before Mrs Killochan’s interruption, it would seem it would have to be a case of giving it a go and hoping for the best.

  God, the man was annoying!

  It was now a little over a month since Tommy had been operated on. Why couldn’t he just sit back and let his body recover in due course?

  From the moment he’d opened his eyes, he’d been in a rush. A rush to get off his pain meds. A rush to get out of bed. A rush to get back on his feet.

  And now a rush to get back in the bloody water.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘Are you two staying up for a while longer?’ Vivian stuck her head round the door to the back parlour. She had just seen off the last client and was doing her usual end-of-evening check and lock-up.

  ‘Yes, ma chère, we’re going to have a little nightcap before heading up. You get yourself off. And Vivian …’ Lily called her back. ‘I just want to say you’re doing a great job as head girl.’

  Vivian’s face lit up.

  ‘Well, I aim to please,’ she said in her best Mae West drawl.

  Lily looked at her longest-serving girl, with her platinum hair and voluptuous figure. She had changed a lot from the skinny, mousy runaway who had come knocking on her door late one night five years ago.

  ‘You have great professionalism. You keep the rest of the girls in line – ’ Lily poured out two cognacs ‘ – as well as the clients.’ She handed one of the drinks to George, who was sitting in the armchair next to the open fire. ‘And you’ve been great with the Brigadier of late, who I know can be a terrible bore and rather a challenge to talk to.’ The old man had a habit of spitting when he talked.

  Vivian smiled a little self-consciously. She didn’t take compliments well.

  ‘And,’ Lily added, ‘now that the Gentlemen’s Club is really starting to get going, I think we’ll sit down and have a longer chat about your and Maisie’s idea to develop this “escorting” side of the business. I’ve been mulling it over. If it’s done properly, it could work well all round.’

  Vivian nodded, smiled and said her goodnights.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Maisie what Lily had just said.

  ‘So, George.’ Lily turned and sat down in the armchair next to her future husband. ‘Tell me how it went at Blacketts today with your fitting?’

  ‘All good, all good,’ Georg
e said.

  Lily looked at him and then at the nest of tables next to his chair on which lay a hardback copy of a book emblazoned with the title Men at War.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, eyeing the book. ‘Let me guess, you spent all of about fifteen minutes at the fitters and at least fifty in the bookshop? Hence the new read.’

  Lily picked up the thick volume of short stories edited by Ernest Hemingway.

  ‘A strange choice for someone who purports to hate anything and everything to do with war.’ Lily looked at her fiancé.

  ‘You are right, my dear, in that I do indeed hate all things to do with war, but that’s not to say the very nature of war and the psychology of human violence do not interest me.’

  Lily wasn’t sure whether this was quite the right start to the conversation she had planned to have with her fiancé that evening.

  ‘So, tell me my love,’ George said, looking at Lily and taking a sip of his cognac, ‘what’s on your mind? I know something is going around that very lovely but very complex and, dare I say it, calculating head of yours?’

  ‘George, mon cher, you know me too well.’ Lily stood and picked up her packet of Gauloises from the mantelpiece.

  ‘Well,’ she said, taking out a cigarette. ‘As you are more than well aware, I’ve been organising our wedding.’ She stopped and lit her cigarette. ‘Which, I hasten to add, is going to be rather spectacular. And I have to admit, despite my initial ranting and raving about us having to move the wedding to Christmas Day, I now wouldn’t want it on any other day. It’s somehow made the whole event doubly exciting. And doubly extravagant.’

  George took a slightly nervous sip of his brandy. He wanted Lily to be his wife more than anything, but he would happily forgo the actual wedding itself. He envied Peter and Rosie their simple, and very private nuptials in Guildford.

  He looked at Lily, who was now sitting back down in her armchair. ‘Spit it out, my dear. You make me nervous when you start beating about the bush. It says to me that you’re about to ask me something – or tell me something – that I’m not going to view favourably.’

  Lily took a long drag on her cigarette.

  ‘Gawd, George, I wish you weren’t so perceptive,’ she said. Cockney was trumping français, as was the norm whenever Lily became angry or exasperated.

  ‘So, come on.’ George smiled.

  ‘Well, much as I adore the suit that we’ve chosen for you to get married in, and which will still come in handy as you were in desperate need of a new one anyway …’ Lily crossed her legs and leant forward so that she could touch George’s hand. ‘ … what would make my day even more special than it’s already going to be …’

  Lily paused.

  ‘Yes?’ George asked, scrutinising Lily suspiciously. He had a horrid feeling he knew what was coming next.

  ‘Would be … if … on our wedding day, you would wear your uniform.’

  The room was quiet for a long moment.

  ‘Lily, my dear.’ George turned to his fiancée with sad eyes. ‘I love you dearly, more than anything or anyone in this world. And you know I’d do anything for you. But this, I’m afraid, is something I can’t do. I don’t even know where my uniform is – or if it’s still in one piece – but even if I did, I wouldn’t.’

  Lily smoked for a moment silently, undeterred. She knew exactly where his uniform was and precisely what state it had been in.

  ‘What I don’t understand about you, George …’ Lily blew out smoke as she talked ‘ … is why you seem to believe that what you did in the last war was something to be ashamed of.’

  ‘I don’t feel shame, my dear,’ George said. ‘I just don’t see that there was anything to be proud of either. And when one wears a uniform it should be with a sense of pride.’

  ‘But I’m proud of you, George,’ Lily said with a rare show of sincerity. ‘I – and many others – think what you did was incredibly brave.’

  She looked at George, who was staring into the fire, lost in another world.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, George, they don’t just hand out Distinguished Service Order medals willy-nilly. You’re a war hero.’

  Lily walked over to George, took hold of his hands and squeezed them.

  ‘Please, just for one day don’t hide your light under a bushel. Let me show people what a great man I am marrying.’

  George got up and kissed Lily tenderly on the lips.

  ‘Come on, my dear. Let’s go to bed.’

  Lily stubbed out her cigarette and took her future husband’s hand.

  She knew by his silence that the answer was no, but that didn’t mean she was going to give up.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The following day

  Thursday 12 November

  The wind was whipping up, snaking its way around the crammed ravine of the Wear and bringing a cold blast from across the North Sea. It was a taste of the winter now lurking around the corner, eager to descend on the town and torment those who worked under the canopy of an unforgiving sky.

  ‘Platers’ shed,’ Rosie said, pointing over to the huge metal warehouse where the metal scales of the ships-to-be were stored.

  Polly, Gloria, Martha, Dorothy and Angie nodded and leant forward as they hit a wind tunnel that stretched the hundred yards to the entrance of their lunchtime sanctuary.

  ‘Bloomin’ weather!’ Dorothy complained as they almost fell over the threshold.

  ‘I do hate the wind,’ Gloria said.

  ‘Yeah, cold over wind any day,’ Martha added, rubbing her eyes, which had just got some dirt in them.

  Spotting a five-gallon barrel fire, Rosie led the way, dumping her haversack on the ground and waving across to a group of caulkers who had also decided to swap the canteen for the airier domain of the platers’ shed.

  The women got to work, pulling up wooden boxes and pallets as makeshift seats, and getting out their packed lunches.

  ‘So …’ Dorothy looked across at Polly. ‘Do I even need to ask?’

  Polly had her sandwich in both hands. She looked round her circle of friends, all staring at her expectantly.

  ‘Yes!’ she declared. A big smile on her face. ‘You’ll be pleased to know I finally did it! I finally told Tommy!’

  ‘Hurrah!’ Dorothy exclaimed.

  ‘About bloody time,’ Gloria said, delving into her haversack to get her sandwiches.

  ‘Oh my God, Pol.’ Angie’s expression was grave. She still couldn’t believe what Polly had done. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He was fine about it … Thank goodness,’ Polly said, taking a bite of her sandwich.

  ‘Fine?’ Rosie said curiously, unscrewing the top of her tea caddy.

  ‘Actually …’ Polly said through a mouthful of bread and spam.

  The women all looked at her in great expectation.

  Polly swallowed.

  ‘ … he burst out laughing!’

  ‘He laughed?’ Angie couldn’t believe her ears.

  ‘Not laughed in a way that he thought it was funny,’ Polly explained, wiping her mouth of crumbs. ‘It was more like he was relieved.’

  ‘Relieved?’ Martha asked, puzzled.

  ‘Yeah, what do you mean “relieved”?’ Angie said, now totally confused. ‘Why would anyone in their right mind be “relieved” ’cos you’d just chucked away a load of their hard-earned dosh?’

  ‘I think he thought there was a chance I might have gone off with someone else … you know … when he was declared missing,’ Polly explained.

  ‘As if!’ Gloria said, blowing on her tin cup of steaming hot tea.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Martha looked baffled. ‘What’s giving his money away got to do with you having another bloke?’

  ‘Because,’ Dorothy butted in, ‘Polly’s reticence about setting a date for the wedding must have made Tommy wonder if she’d gone off with someone else. You know? While the cat’s away, the mice will play?’ She looked at Polly. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘That’s ab
out the nub of it,’ Polly said.

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’ Rosie asked, unsurprised by Tommy’s reaction.

  ‘About?’ Polly asked, taking care not to spill her tea as she poured it into her cup.

  ‘About getting married,’ Gloria said. She had told Jack about Polly’s charitable donations when they’d spoken last night. At the end of the call he had suddenly blurted out that he longed for the day when he could free himself from Miriam, marry Gloria and be a proper father to Hope. It had made her feel so happy – and also so sad.

  ‘Well,’ Polly said, taking a slurp of tea, ‘we decided we were no worse and no better off than most couples who want to get married these days, and that we’d just have to do it on the cheap. I mean, you don’t have to have a load of money to have a great wedding, do you?’

  The women murmured their agreement, but it lacked conviction.

  ‘I suppose you could wait a while till you’re able to save up a bit of money,’ Gloria proposed.

  ‘Mmm, I did suggest that,’ Polly said, ‘but Tommy said he didn’t want to wait. And if I’m honest, I don’t really want to wait either, especially as it’d take us ages to save up. Even if Tommy’s well enough to work again and we’ve two wages coming in, it’ll still take us ages to make up what I gave away.’

  ‘Cheap ’n cheerful. And better sooner than later, eh?’ Gloria said, sensing the woman’s slightly deflated mood. Polly had been everyone’s happy-ever-after. They’d all agreed that their workmate would make a beautiful bride and look amazing in white, floating down the aisle towards the man she was batty about.

  ‘You know that Kate will make you a wedding dress, don’t you?’ Rosie said. ‘And she won’t expect paying.’

  ‘I know she would,’ Polly said. She had dreamed of the kind of beautiful wedding dress she knew Kate could create for her, but she would never admit it. ‘But that’s not fair on Kate. Especially as she’s got her hands full with Lily’s wedding dress and all her seamstress work. No, I’m going to ask around. See if perhaps I can borrow one. Or get a second-hand one cheap.’