The Shipyard Girls on the Home Front Page 5

  ‘Come here …’ She reached up and gave Jack a hug. ‘Your return has made so many people happy.’

  ‘Made possible because of you – and Pearl,’ Jack said, hugging her back.

  Agnes had shaken Jack’s coat out and was now stretching it across an old, rather rickety wooden clothes horse. She looked down at the two dogs, adopted a stern expression and pointed to their bed next to the range. Jack smiled as Tramp and Pup complied.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to come ’n see yer since I got back,’ Jack said to Bel, ‘but when Glor told me about yer new arrivals ’n that it had been quite chaotic here, well, I thought I’d let things settle first.’

  Agnes let out a hoot of laugher as she went into the scullery. ‘Yer can say that again.’

  Bel chuckled. ‘You couldn’t have timed it better. I think this is the quietest it’s been.’

  ‘Joe not about?’ Jack asked.

  ‘He’s out with the Major – apparently there’s some kind of meeting to discuss “the future of the Home Guard”.’

  Jack nodded. He knew Joe spent every spare minute with his unit and Major Black, who had also become a good friend of the family. He was also aware that as the country was no longer under any real threat of invasion, questions were beginning to be asked about the real need for an armed citizen militia.

  ‘And Polly’s just taken little Artie to the park in the pram,’ Bel said, as the sound of light footsteps could be heard hurrying down the stairs. ‘Leaving just me, Agnes and – ’ Lucille burst into the kitchen ‘ – cheeky chops here.’

  ‘My, my!’ Jack said. ‘Someone’s shot up.’ He was genuinely surprised to see how grown up Lucille was. ‘The last time I saw this little lassie, she was only so high.’ Jack put his hand out level with Lucille’s waist. ‘How old are you now?’

  ‘Five and a half,’ Lucille said, leaning against her mammy, her big blue eyes looking up at the strange man in their kitchen. Her vision fell to the parcel under Jack’s arm.

  ‘Ah, a bit of fish from the docks.’ He took the filleted pollock that had been wrapped up in greaseproof paper and handed it to Agnes.

  ‘That’s very kind, but unnecessary, Jack. Yer don’t have to come bearing gifts. It’s just nice to see yer.’ A flash of sadness suddenly crossed Agnes’s face. ‘Yer just reminded me of Arthur there. Always bringing me a bit of fish or a few crabs.’

  ‘That sounds like the old man,’ Jack said.

  Agnes touched Jack’s arm. ‘I’m sorry yer never got to say a proper goodbye.’ Miriam had refused to allow him back to attend the funeral of the man who had been a father figure to him when Jack was young, and a trusted friend as he had got older. ‘I know how close yer both were.’

  ‘We were,’ Jack said solemnly, ‘but I know he’ll be happy now he’s back with his Flo. I don’t think there was a day went by that he didn’t miss her.’

  Agnes nodded, thinking of how she had found Arthur in his bed the morning after he’d seen his grandson married. He had looked so peaceful and had been holding a picture of Flo to his chest.

  ‘Hello!’

  Everyone turned on hearing Gloria’s voice. Seconds later, she appeared in the kitchen with Hope by her side.

  ‘Gloria, lovely to see you,’ Bel said. The two women embraced. ‘Come in, take your coat off and sit down.’

  Gloria unbuttoned her coat and pulled out a gift that she had been keeping dry.

  ‘This is just a very small thank-you present,’ she said, looking at Jack. ‘From us both.’ She handed the present over. ‘Helen helped me choose it. We went to Risdon’s.’ Bel widened her eyes. Risdon’s was the town’s top baby store. ‘She says to tell yer that she’ll probably pop in ’n see yer later.’

  Bel opened the present and pulled out two beautiful romper suits – one pink and one blue. ‘Oh, they’re adorable,’ she gushed, putting them both to her face and feeling the softness of the fabric. ‘But you shouldn’t have.’ She gave Gloria a hug. ‘Thank you. That’s incredibly kind.’

  Lucille, who was still standing by her side, quietly observing the grown-ups, pulled on her sleeve.

  ‘Mammy, can I show Hope my new bedroom?’

  Bel looked down at her daughter. ‘Yes, but make sure she’s careful going up the stairs. Keep hold of her hand.’

  Bel looked at Gloria as Lucille took Hope’s little hand and left the room. ‘We’ve let her have Pearl’s old room, next to Agnes’s.’

  ‘Pearl’s moved out?’ Gloria was surprised.

  ‘She moved in with Bill today,’ Agnes said, coming back into the kitchen and putting a pot of tea on the table. She waved at everyone to sit down.

  ‘Oh,’ Gloria said, surprised. ‘I didn’t think she’d move in until after the wedding.’

  Bel chuckled. ‘You know my ma, never one to conform to society’s conventions.’

  Jack and Gloria looked at each other as they sat down. They too were living in sin.

  ‘Ma said it was a good idea as it would give Bill a chance to back out before it was too late,’ Bel said, deadpan.

  Everyone laughed. It sounded exactly like the kind of comment Pearl would make.

  ‘Bill, of course, was over the moon.’

  ‘We’re going to pop ’n see her after we’ve been here,’ Gloria said.

  ‘Any reason?’ Bel asked, looking over at Gabrielle and Stephen, who, thankfully, were still sleeping soundly.

  Jack laughed.

  ‘For the same reason I’m here today – to tell her how indebted I am to her. To say thank you for what she did.’ Jack shook his head. ‘Thank you just doesn’t seem enough.’ He paused. ‘I don’t think you have any idea how much what you and yer ma did has changed our lives … How happy you’ve both made us. Me, Gloria and Hope.’

  ‘And Helen,’ Gloria added.

  Bel looked at Jack and Gloria. ‘I’m just so glad the idea came to me.’

  ‘As are we,’ Jack said. ‘I want yer to know we’ll never forget what yer did for as long as we live, will we, Glor?’

  Gloria nodded. She forced herself to swallow back tears. She still felt overwhelmed by what Bel and Pearl had done.

  Bel smiled, feeling her own eyes become hazy with the onset of tears. She wanted to tell them that she, too, had much to be grateful for. She had also thanked her ma, as well as her sister, Maisie, and her ‘niece’, Helen – they had all provided her with the ammunition she needed for her battle with Charles Havelock. A battle she was certain would have ended in defeat had she fought it on her own.

  ‘I’m just so glad it all worked out in the end,’ Bel said, not trusting herself to say more. She looked across at the twins, who were just starting to wake up, their little clenched hands reaching out for their mammy. She had been rewarded tenfold.

  ‘Ah, the wanderer returns,’ Pearl said on seeing Gloria and Jack walk into the pub. She made it sound as though Jack was a travelling troubadour who had finally decided to come back home.

  ‘Hello, Pearl.’ Jack strode over to the bar and put out his hand.

  Pearl dried her hands on a tea towel and shook it. After everything that had gone on, she felt as though she knew him, even though in the past they had barely exchanged more than a few words.

  ‘All right there, Jack … Gloria.’ Bill walked from the far end of the bar and stuck out his hand. ‘Good to see you both. What yer having?’ he asked.

  ‘A port and lemon ’n a pint of Vaux – and whatever you two are having,’ Jack said, putting his hand in his pocket.

  ‘No,’ Bill said, ‘this is on the house.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Jack countered. ‘This is the least I can do.’ He looked at Pearl. ‘For everything yer’ve done.’

  Jack and Gloria knew that Pearl had visited Henrietta regularly at the asylum, her instincts telling her that Henrietta was sitting on a pile of dynamite. And my goodness, had she been proved right.

  ‘We both wanted to thank you – properly,’ Jack said.

  Pearl sparked up a fag and blew
smoke into the air.

  ‘No offence, Jack,’ she said, looking about to make sure none of the regulars propping up the bar could hear, ‘but I did what I did for my Isabelle.’ She laughed, then coughed. ‘I won’t say no to a Scotch, though.’

  Jack chuckled and Bill shook his head in despair.

  ‘And congratulations on getting engaged,’ Gloria said as Bill placed their drinks on the bar.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Bill, pouring himself a pint. ‘I’ve just got to get my future wife here to set a date so I can get us booked in with the registrar.’ He winked at Pearl as she helped herself to a shot of single malt from the optics.

  ‘Patience is a virtue,’ Pearl said, raising her glass.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Bill, ‘but “Cheers” anyway.’

  Everyone clinked glasses.

  ‘And wishing yer lots of happiness in yer home,’ Jack said before taking a sip from his pint.

  Bill and Pearl gave each other the briefest of looks.

  ‘Eee, I dinnit knar, news travels fast round these parts,’ Pearl said. ‘Had to get out of there, it’s like a nursery now, what with the twins, baby Artie and LuLu. It’s the only reason I said yes to this heffalump.’ She threw Bill a playful look.

  Just then a crowd of shipyard workers came bustling into the bar, full of laughter and cigarette smoke. Gloria and Jack made their excuses and headed over to a quiet corner of the pub.

  ‘She’s a tough nut, isn’t she?’ Jack said as they sat down.

  ‘She is, but I think Bill’s softening her up.’

  Jack laughed. ‘Brave man. It must be love.’

  As they both took sips of their drinks, they looked about, sitting quietly for a moment, enjoying the novelty of being out together as a couple. Bel had kindly offered to look after Hope, chuckling when they’d said they wanted to thank Pearl for her part in bringing Jack back. She’d predicted her ma would be having none of it.

  For a while Gloria and Jack chatted about Crown’s and Jack’s new job, or rather the return to his old job, and Gloria filled him in with the latest from Thompson’s, the women welders and how Dorothy was already planning her wedding to Toby.

  ‘Poor bloke hasn’t even had a chance to ask her yet,’ Gloria said. ‘Sounds like he’s been moved to some base down south.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ Jack asked.

  ‘He can’t tell her, but he’s promised to try and get up to see her in the next few weeks. Even if it’s just a fleeting visit.’

  Jack knew Gloria was the mother hen of the women welders and ended up being a stand-in mum, in particular to Dorothy, whose own mam didn’t seem to have the time of day for her, and, of course, Helen, Miriam not possessing a single maternal bone in her body.

  ‘It’s a shame Helen can’t find herself a nice bloke to start a family with,’ Jack said.

  ‘I know,’ Gloria agreed. ‘I really had high hopes that Dr Parker might be the one, but that just seems destined never to happen.’

  ‘I remember he seemed like a decent lad. Very caring manner. Didn’t have that attitude some doctors have, yer know what I mean?’ Jack had got to know Dr Parker a little during his convalescence after coming round from his coma.

  ‘I know exactly what you mean. And he’s been a good friend to Helen while you’ve been gone,’ Gloria said, thinking of how Dr Parker had saved Helen when she’d nearly haemorrhaged to death miscarrying. Not that she could tell Jack. Helen had sworn her to secrecy about the whole Theo debacle.

  ‘So, what happened? I can’t imagine him not liking Helen.’ He laughed. ‘Mind you, I might be a bit biased – she is my daughter, and as such can do no wrong.’

  ‘I think it’s complicated,’ she said.

  Seeing two sailors come into the pub, Jack knew this was the perfect chance to broach the subject of Gloria’s sons – Bobby and Gordon. He took a sip of his bitter and decided to just come straight out with it.

  ‘When yer gonna tell yer boys about us?’ Jack asked, his eyes on Gloria. She had also noticed the two sailors, who looked to be in their early twenties, around the same age as her sons.

  Gloria sighed heavily. ‘Yer must have read my mind.’

  Jack smiled and reached over to squeeze her hand. The past few weeks had been filled with such joy and happiness. Finally, he was with the woman he loved. At last he could be a father to his little girl, and, of course, to his eldest daughter – not that Helen needed him. She’d grown up a lot since he’d been banished to Scotland. But now that he was back, it was time to confront certain concerns – one of which was Gloria’s boys and the fact they had no idea their mam had divorced their dad and was now living with another man – a married man – with whom she’d had a baby.

  ‘Do yer think yer should write to them?’ Jack suggested. He knew Bobby and Gordon were presently stationed on HMS Opportune somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. ‘It’s going to be an awful lot for them to take on board when they do come back.’

  Gloria let out another heavy sigh and took a sip of her port. ‘I know it is. I wish I’d at least told them about the divorce.’

  ‘And there’s no way he would have written and told them?’ Jack couldn’t bring himself to say Vinnie’s name. Just the thought of him made his jaw clench with anger. How he wished he had been able to give Vinnie a taste of his own medicine to make up for just a modicum of what he had forced Gloria to endure over the years.

  ‘No, they’d have told me if he had,’ Gloria said. ‘Vinnie’s not exactly one for writing, and I certainly don’t think they would have written to him. Why would they? They both hate the man, even if he is their father.’

  Jack knew that Bobby and Gordon had left home as soon as they could. They’d both done a couple of years as apprentice riveters at Bartram’s before joining the navy as soon as they were old enough. From what Gloria had said, it hadn’t been a calling, more a case of them wanting to escape the atmosphere at home, which had become increasingly charged and violent as they had grown into young men.

  ‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea to tell them everything in a letter,’ Gloria said. This had always been a slightly touchy subject between her and Jack. It had cropped up before in conversation, but had never been properly discussed – it had been hard chatting to Jack over the phone at work; there were always people coming and going, or he had to dash off when he was needed in the yard. Lately she’d had Hope with her, which had made it even more difficult.

  ‘I mean,’ Gloria said, rotating her glass of port on the wooden table, ‘how are they going to feel hearing that not only have I divorced their father, which is pretty shocking in itself, but I’m now living in sin with a married man … and we’ve had a child together.’

  Jack took a mouthful of bitter but didn’t say anything.

  ‘And it won’t take them long to work out that I was having an affair with you while I was still with Vinnie – and that I’d already had Hope before I’d even started divorce proceedings.’

  Jack exhaled. ‘Put like that, it does not sound good.’

  Gloria looked forlorn. ‘I want to be there to answer their questions. To explain. I’m worried about how they’ll react if I tell them in a letter … If they get upset or angry … I wouldn’t want anything to take their minds off what they’re doing and for something to happen to them as a result.’ Gloria looked at Jack, desperate for him to understand.

  ‘I think yer might be being a bit overprotective there, Glor.’ He paused, knowing that Gloria would not appreciate what he really thought, but unable to hold back. ‘They are both grown lads now. How old are they again? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?’

  ‘Bobby’s twenty-three. Gordon’s about to have his twenty-second birthday.’ Both her sons’ birthdays were somehow even more ingrained than usual in Gloria’s memory these days. Her boys were the only two good things that had come out of her unhappy and abusive marriage.

  Jack was quiet. He and Gloria saw eye to eye about almost everything, but she did have a tenden
cy to hold back information for fear of causing upset. She’d not told him she had been pregnant with Hope before he left for America, worried about how it would affect him. And she hadn’t told him about Vinnie’s violence when he was recovering from amnesia; something that had ended up having dangerous repercussions for herself.

  Holding back from telling her boys about divorcing their father made it so much harder now to tell them that she had met someone else – never mind that she’d had another child. Gloria, he realised, had boxed herself into a corner. There was not going to be any easy way out.

  ‘At the moment I just want them to get back. Safe and sound,’ Gloria said eventually.

  They were both quiet; they had just heard that Empire Houseman, a cargo vessel Doxford’s had built, had been hit by two torpedoes. Two lads from the town who were on board had been lucky to survive. One of their crew hadn’t been so fortunate.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do if they didn’t get through this war,’ Gloria said. ‘I can deal with anything – anything at all – except that.’

  Jack knew it was true – in the light of what could happen, worries about what her boys might think of her changed domestic situation seemed insignificant. He still thought, though, that she should write and tell them.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and fetch Hope,’ he said, getting up. He helped Gloria on with her coat.

  ‘Anyway,’ he added, trying to lighten the mood, ‘there’s one thing you don’t have to worry about with yer two lads …’

  ‘And what’s that?’ Gloria asked.

  ‘The pair of them won’t be able to help falling in love with their little sister.’

  Gloria smiled.

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘They’re both suckers for a pretty face.’

  Chapter Six

  Ryhope Emergency Hospital, Ryhope Village, County Durham

  Saturday 15 January

  ‘John!’

  Helen called out and waved over the sea of heads in the canteen.

  As soon as Dr Parker spotted Helen, he stood up. He watched as she manoeuvred her way around half a dozen tables to reach him. Her stunning looks and hourglass figure drew admiring glances from the men she passed, and envious once-overs from the women. When she reached him, he put his arms out and gave her a kiss on the cheek.