A Christmas Wish for the Shipyard Girls Read online

  It was only then that Bel understood not just that Helen was in love with Dr Parker, but how strong and deep her love for him was. This wasn’t simply about some other woman snaring the man she wanted for herself, but Helen losing the man she was desperate to be with – for ever. And Bel knew better than most that love like that rarely came along twice. She had been one of the lucky ones.

  ‘Well, I don’t think you should give up until you know the whole story. All the facts. You don’t know for certain he stayed over at her place. It might have looked like a kiss between two lovers, but that could have just been your imagination.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Helen mused. ‘I’m not convinced.’ She gave Bel a sad smile. ‘But I think you’re right in that I do need to make sure I haven’t got the wrong end of the stick.’ She sighed again. Her thoughts fell back to the last traumatic twenty-four hours – the shocking bombshell about her grandfather, followed by the worst air raid thus far. The pervasiveness of all the death and destruction meted out to the town had driven her determination to tell John that she loved him. That she didn’t just want to be his friend, but his lover – his lifelong soulmate.

  ‘Oh, there you are!’

  Helen and Bel turned round simultaneously.

  An attractive, smartly dressed woman in a brown tailored skirt suit, her shiny, tawny-coloured hair twisted up into a French knot, was walking down the stone steps of the asylum. She had her eyes trained on Helen and a wide smile on her face.

  ‘Oh no,’ Helen whispered under her breath.

  Bel stared at the tall, slim woman now striding purposefully towards them. She reminded her a little of Katharine Hepburn. Amazing cheekbones, flawless skin with just a dusting of freckles.

  Helen stood up and Bel followed suit.

  ‘Helen, I’m so glad I caught you before you left.’ Dr Eris glanced at Bel and smiled before returning her attention to Helen. ‘That was you I saw in the West Wing, wasn’t it?’

  Helen hesitated for a moment. She thought about denying it but realised there was no point.

  ‘Yes, your eyes weren’t playing tricks. That was indeed me,’ Helen said, trying her hardest to sound upbeat and hoping to God it wasn’t obvious that she’d been crying.

  ‘Ah, that’s good. Not going mad then.’ Claire grimaced a little. ‘I worry sometimes about making the crossover.’ She cocked her head towards the Gothic, red-brick frontage of the asylum. ‘They say it’s never a good idea to live and work in a hospital of this kind. One might get confused. Doctor or patient? Patient or doctor?’ She laughed lightly. ‘I didn’t see your friend with you, though?’ She looked at Bel.

  ‘No, no, you didn’t.’ Helen didn’t elaborate, but instead turned to Bel. ‘Bel, this is Claire – or rather, Dr Eris.’ Helen pulled her mouth into a mock grimace. ‘That is, providing she doesn’t “make the crossover”.’

  Dr Eris laughed and stretched out her arm. ‘Pleased to meet you, Bel.’

  Bel returned the handshake and gave a polite smile. ‘I wonder,’ Dr Eris said, focusing her attention back on Helen, ‘if I could perhaps have a quick word with you?’

  ‘Of course, fire ahead,’ Helen said, showing that the ‘quick word’ would have to be said in front of Bel.

  Dr Eris hesitated before carrying on. ‘I just wanted to say …’ her eyes flicked to Bel before she fixed her gaze on Helen ‘… that, obviously, as you will have guessed from seeing John and me just now –’

  Helen felt her heart race.

  ‘– in a rather amorous embrace –’

  No room for doubt now.

  ‘– that as we are clearly more than simply colleagues, and because I know John and you are close friends, that just because we are “together” as such, well, this doesn’t mean you two can’t continue to be friends.’ Another smile. ‘I’m not one of these women who demand their beaux don’t fraternise with any other person of the opposite sex.’

  Helen continued to stand and listen. She had a feeling Dr Eris hadn’t quite finished what she had come here to say.

  She was right.

  ‘But you’ll have to forgive him if he isn’t able to see you as much as he has been.’ Dr Eris gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘You know what it’s like at the start? You just want to be with each other every minute of every day, don’t you?’

  Helen laughed a little too loudly. ‘I do indeed, Claire. I do indeed.’ She looked into Dr Eris’s hazel eyes. ‘I guess the real teller is when you still want to be with each other every minute of every day once the shine’s worn off.’

  There was a moment’s awkward silence.

  ‘Anyway,’ Dr Eris said, ‘when I saw you back there, you seemed in rather a rush. Was there something you wanted? I’m guessing it was John you were looking for?’ She forced a smile.

  Helen gave an equally false smile. ‘Yes, it was, but it’s not important. It can wait.’

  Dr Eris glanced down at her watch. ‘Oh my goodness, where does the time go?’

  She looked directly at Bel.

  ‘Well, lovely to meet you.’ Dr Eris smiled.

  Bel thought she had the most perfect teeth she’d ever seen.

  ‘And,’ Dr Eris turned to Helen, ‘I’m glad we’ve managed to have this little chat … Anyway, best get a shimmy on. Minds to mend and all that.’

  And with that Dr Eris turned and quickly walked back to the main entrance, hurried up the stone steps and disappeared through the wooden swing doors.

  Helen looked at Bel. ‘Well, I guess that answers that question.’

  Bel opened her mouth to offer words of reassurance, but none came out. If there had been any doubt that Helen might have misread the scene, it had been wiped clean away.

  ‘I think that is called staking your claim,’ Helen said.

  Bel nodded but didn’t say anything. She didn’t know Helen well enough to offer her any words of comfort, not that she could think of any even if she had. Poor Helen. She looked bereft.

  ‘Are you going to be all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Helen said as convincingly as possible. ‘Best get back to work. Denewood took a battering last night.’ The dry cargo vessel was the yard’s most recent launch.

  ‘Really?’ Bel was shocked. She’d heard that J.L. Thompson & Sons had been hit during last night’s air raid, but not any details. ‘Badly?’ She knew everyone would be gutted. The whole yard had worked flat out to get Denewood down the ways on time.

  ‘She was taking in water this morning, but they’ve managed to keep her afloat.’ Helen straightened her shoulders. ‘Honestly, here’s me moaning on about some bloke and the whole town’s been bombed to smithereens.’

  ‘That might be,’ Bel said, ‘but Dr Parker isn’t just “some bloke”, is he?’

  ‘No,’ Helen acquiesced, ‘but he’s going to have to be from now on.’

  They were quiet for a moment.

  Helen looked at Bel and was again hit by the family resemblance: her mother and Bel had the same blonde hair and blue eyes, the same nose and lips.

  ‘Gosh, you must think I’m so incredibly shallow. I haven’t even mentioned the …’ Helen stopped. ‘The … God, I can’t even think of a word to describe the abominable thing my grandfather did.’ Helen’s shoulders suddenly drooped as she thought of how her grandfather, the revered Mr Charles Havelock, had raped Pearl, then a fifteen-year-old scullery maid – and how that heinous act of violence had led to Pearl becoming pregnant with Bel.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Bel. I still don’t know what to say. I don’t think it’s really sunk in, to be honest.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that now,’ Bel said. ‘A conversation for another time?’

  ‘Yes, definitely,’ Helen agreed. ‘Yesterday and today have been tumultuous, to say the least.’ She looked over at her grandfather’s black Jaguar. ‘Are you sure I can’t give you and your mother a lift home?’

  ‘No, honestly, we’ll be fine. Knowing my ma, she’ll want some hair of the dog.’ Bel rolled her eyes. ‘She had a few to
o many last night. She mentioned nipping into the village afterwards, which means an hour in the Railway Inn before we get on the train.’

  Helen felt a sudden jolt of sadness. The Railway Inn had been her and John’s favourite meeting place.

  ‘Oh.’ Helen let out a bitter laugh. ‘Tell her to have one for me.’

  Bel’s laughter was just as bitter.

  ‘I will. Not that she’ll need any encouragement.’

  Chapter Two

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise Miss Girling had any visitors.’

  Pearl swivelled round on her chair to see a rather rotund nurse blocking the doorway, hands on hips, strands of curly ginger hair escaping her cap.

  Pearl was confused, even more than she had already been.

  Miss Girling? Who the bloody hell is she talking about? Pearl felt like kicking herself. Why oh why had she got so bladdered last night? Had the bootleg whisky she’d been necking back made her doolally? She shouldn’t be here! She should be with Bill, having a laugh about him ending up in the local loony bin and telling him it served him right for going off for a lock-in.

  ‘Miss who?’ Pearl asked, her voice croaky. She felt the need for a cigarette.

  This was all Isabelle’s fault. She’d never have ended up here – never have got lost – if Isabelle had come with her.

  The nurse narrowed her eyes. ‘Well, you’re obviously neither friend nor family if you don’t know the name of the woman yer sat here yammering away to.’ She bustled over to Henrietta, who was sitting, perched like a little bird, on the stool next to the mahogany dressing table, her back to the three-way mirror, her hands clasped together on her lap.

  ‘You all right there, pet?’ The nurse towered over her diminutive charge.

  ‘This is my Little Match Girl. Den Lille Pige med Svovlstik-kerne!’ Henrietta explained.

  Pearl felt herself stiffen. ‘Little Match Girl’ had been her nickname. Given to her by Henrietta. Mrs Henrietta Havelock. So why was this daft mare calling her Miss Girling?

  ‘Course she’s your Little Match Girl, pet.’

  Pearl was speechless; she couldn’t believe anyone had the audacity to call the mistress ‘pet’. She watched in disbelief as the nurse gave Henrietta a patronising smile before swinging her girth round to face the scrawny, middle-aged, mutton-dressed-as-lamb intruder.

  Glowering down at Pearl, the nurse jerked her head towards the door.

  ‘Hop it!’

  Pearl stood up, but as she did so Henrietta leant forward and grabbed hold of her arm.

  ‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ she pleaded, her face upturned, her eyes desperate.

  ‘Come on then, chop-chop!’ The nurse was making no attempt to hide her ire at finding a stranger in her patient’s room. Taking hold of Pearl’s arm, she gripped it tightly and forced her towards the open doorway.

  ‘You’ll come back, won’t you, Little Match Girl?’ Henrietta’s high-pitched, sing-song voice followed Pearl as she left the room.

  Once they were out in the corridor, the nurse looked Pearl up and down. ‘Yer’ve not pilfered owt, have yer?’

  Pearl didn’t give her a mouthful as she would normally have done; she was barely aware of the busybody nurse uttering accusations. Instead, her attention was fixed solely on Henrietta, whose pupils were so large, her eyes looked almost black.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ The nurse took Pearl’s handbag and looked inside. It was empty save for a packet of cigarettes, a lighter and a small leather purse.

  Pearl continued to stare at Henrietta, spellbound.

  ‘Blimey, yer smell like a brewery.’ The nurse pushed the bag back at Pearl and pointed down the corridor.

  ‘Walk to the end and turn right. Then follow the signs to reception. And don’t let me see hide nor hair of you again.’

  Pearl took one last look at Henrietta, her former employer, still sitting with her back to the dressing table, still staring at her ‘Little Match Girl’. Her eyes still imploring her to return.

  As Pearl staggered down the corridor, her mind seemed to have got stuck back in time. She was a young girl again, her only clothes the rags on her back, her few possessions stuffed into a cloth bag, knocking on the doors of the big houses. Desperate for a job. Desperate for a roof over her head and food in her belly. There had been many times since then she’d wished she had been turned away – that she had gone to the park across the road, put her head down and died of cold and hunger. Just like the real Little Match Girl. But she hadn’t. A Russian-doll woman with garish make-up, outlandish hair and wearing clothes that looked from another era, had waved her in, given her a job and, a few months later, brought her to the attention of the master of the house – her husband, Mr Charles Havelock.

  As Dr Eris walked down the corridor, she had to allow herself a self-satisfied smile. After a rather disappointing end to the evening last night, with John politely refusing her offer to come in for a cup of tea and giving her a rather brotherly kiss on the cheek, the tables had been well and truly turned. She felt herself blush as she recalled their earlier kiss. It had been rather wonderful – and long enough for Helen to have seen it. Long enough for her to have turned back and returned to where she’d come from. For good, hopefully.

  After starting at the asylum in the New Year, Dr Eris had spent the past few months getting to know Dr Parker, chatting to him, making him laugh – making him feel at ease with her. She knew John liked her and found her attractive, but she suspected that Helen might be a potential spanner in the works – that his feelings for his ‘friend’ were not purely platonic.

  When she’d finally met Helen in the canteen the other day, her heart had sunk. The woman was a stunner. Glossy black hair, hourglass figure – and the most amazing emerald eyes. A fool would know that John, or any other red-blooded male for that matter, would want to be much more than just friends. But what had perturbed her most was that it was obvious Helen was mad about him. Thank goodness John clearly had no idea. She just had to make sure that didn’t change. After the meeting in the canteen, she knew the clock was ticking. She had competition. Serious competition. She had to act fast before John wised up and realised what was on offer – or worse still, before Helen decided to make the first move. Which was why, when she had seen John yesterday afternoon and he’d told her his scheduled surgery had been put back, she’d taken a gamble and suggested they go for a drink in the Albion.

  ‘Watch where yer gannin!’

  Turning the corner towards the East Wing, Dr Eris suddenly came face to face with a rather bedraggled-looking woman with badly dyed blonde hair who was wearing clothes that were more suited to someone half her age.

  ‘So sorry, I didn’t see you there,’ Dr Eris said, moving to the side.

  ‘How do I gerra out of here?’ the woman asked, scrabbling around in her handbag.

  ‘Just keep going straight down this corridor, turn left and you’ll end up at reception.’

  The woman huffed and walked off.

  Dr Eris watched as she stopped and lit up a cigarette before disappearing round the corner in a cloud of grey smoke. She wondered whether she should go after the strange woman and check she wasn’t a patient but decided against it. The chances were that she was a visitor. They were always getting lost, which was no surprise; the place really was like a maze. If she’d got it wrong and the woman was an inmate, then Genevieve would know; she’d worked here long enough, and although she was getting on, her mind was still as sharp as a pin. She’d call the orderlies and they’d bring the woman back.

  As she continued on her way, her mind snapped back to John. And, moreover, their kiss. When she’d opened her front door and seen Helen – or rather, seen the determined look on her face, combined with the fact that she was done up to the nines – well, it didn’t take a degree in psychology to know she had come for John.

  Helen’s unexpected appearance at the asylum made sense after last night’s bombing. She’d seen similar impulsive behaviour after air raids.
All those thoughts of life and death followed by a sudden compulsion to live for the day.

  Some might say her own behaviour had been motivated by such side effects of war, but, of course, it hadn’t. Her actions this afternoon had been driven by one thing, and one thing alone: her fear that John might be snatched from right under her nose.

  ‘Ah, Nurse Pattinson,’ Dr Eris said, walking into the room of one of her more challenging patients. ‘How’s Miss Girling doing today?’

  ‘She’s been letting strangers into her room,’ the nurse said as she smoothed down the divan on the bed. She loved the feel of embroidered silk. ‘Some tramp of a townie,’ she said, taking the pillows and fluffing them up. ‘Reckon she’d either got lost or was looking at what she could pilfer.’

  ‘I think I just bumped into her,’ Dr Eris said, pulling up the chair Pearl had just vacated. She took hold of Henrietta’s hand and felt her pulse.

  ‘Dear me, Miss Girling. Feels like you’ve had a quick sprint around the grounds.’

  Henrietta looked at the young doctor sitting opposite her, then down at her hands, which were soft and cold. They were milky white. The colour of an opal …

  ‘Pearl!’ Her eyes widened in glee. She had been trying and trying to bring the name to the forefront of her mind, but it felt as though it had got stuck in treacle.

  ‘Who’s Pearl?’ Dr Eris asked as she let go of Henrietta’s hand and tipped her head slightly back. She pulled out a small, pen-shaped torch from the top pocket of her jacket and shone it briefly into both eyes.

  ‘The Little Match Girl.’ Henrietta blinked but kept her face still.

  Dr Eris got up and unhooked the chart at the bottom of Henrietta’s bed. She looked across at Nurse Pattinson, who arched an eyebrow.

  ‘Pearl from The Scarlet Letter,’ Henrietta explained.

  ‘By Nathaniel Hawthorne?’ Dr Eris looked up.

  Henrietta nodded.

  ‘Miss Girling, you are quite an anomaly, aren’t you? And certainly the most well-read patient I’ve ever had.’

  Henrietta smiled at the compliment.