Secrets of the Shipyard Girls Read online

  ‘Is it a “yes” or a “no”, Bel?’

  Bel felt herself gulp for air. Joe was looking intently at her.

  ‘Yes, it’s a yes, Joe … Yes, I’d love to be your wife.’ A big smile spread across Bel’s face and another batch of tears started to tumble down her rosy cheeks. Joe grabbed hold of the woman he couldn’t quite believe had agreed to marry him and kissed her on the lips.

  ‘I love you, Bel Elliot. You won’t regret this. I promise you,’ he said, giving her another kiss.

  ‘I just hope you don’t regret it!’ Bel said, half laughing through a blur of tears.

  Polly strode over to the newly engaged couple and gave Bel an almighty hug. She was still in her dirty overalls, and her thick-soled work boots that made her even taller than she already was were now causing her to tower over Bel. Polly put her hands on Bel’s shoulders and beamed at her.

  Her smile was genuine, although a rush of sadness had accompanied her happiness for her brother and Bel. A sadness that Teddy had been deprived – not only of his life, but of love as well.

  ‘Congratulations, Bel!’ Polly said, forcing back thoughts of one brother and turning towards her other. ‘And you too, Joe. Although heaven knows what Bel sees in you! She needs her head testing, if you ask me,’ she teased.

  ‘Aye, congratulations, the both of you.’ Arthur stepped forward. ‘You make a lovely couple,’ he said, grabbing hold of Joe’s hand and shaking it energetically before taking Bel’s small, slender hand into his own gnarled bear’s paw and giving it a kiss. The words he spoke were, as always, sincere. Arthur never said anything he didn’t mean or feel.

  ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Everyone turned round. It was Agnes, back from her evening cup of tea and gossip with Beryl, their next-door neighbour. The faces that greeted her were full of emotion.

  ‘Our Joe has just proposed to Bel.’ Polly couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

  They all looked at Agnes, waiting her response. Needing her approval.

  For a second her face went blank while she digested the words she had just heard, then her mouth creased upwards into a wide smile.

  ‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ she said in a mock-matronly manner. ‘I was just starting to worry you two might be thinking of – what’s that expression … “living in sin”?’

  She went over to give Bel a big hug and a kiss, before turning to Joe and demanding, ‘Well, what’re you waiting for? Get the brandy out. This calls for a celebratory drink … Polly, get yourself cleaned up, you look like an overgrown chimney sweep. And Arthur, put those vegetables by the sink and get the wireless tuned into something cheerful. No news tonight, thank you very much!’

  Agnes turned on her heel and walked back out of the kitchen.

  ‘And where’re you going, Ma?’ Joe asked as he opened the cupboard door in the scullery to locate the brandy.

  ‘I’m going to get Beryl and the girls. Can’t have a knees-up without them. I’ll be back in a jiffy.’

  Agnes hurried down the hallway and went to open the front door but as she did so, Pearl was reaching to open it from the other side. The two women almost came head to head.

  ‘Whoa!’ Pearl said. ‘What’s the rush? Did I miss the air raid siren go off or what?’

  ‘Ah, Pearl.’ Agnes couldn’t stop the disappointment showing in her face, but quickly covered it up. She knew this was probably the last person either Bel or Joe wanted to share this special moment with. Pearl was guaranteed to throw a big bucket of cold water over their excitement. Still, she couldn’t exactly stop her from coming in. Pearl had made it quite clear that this was now her home, and one she was happily ensconced in for the foreseeable future. Besides, Bel was her daughter. Much as that pained Bel.

  ‘I thought you were working at the Tatham this evening?’ Agnes asked, unconsciously blocking her way into the house.

  ‘Aye, I was,’ Pearl said. Agnes could smell whisky and cigarette smoke on her breath. ‘But it was dead as a doornail tonight. Bill told me to get myself home. No point in just standing around like a lemon deeing nowt.’

  Agnes thought it more than likely that Bill, the landlord of the Tatham Arms, didn’t want Pearl helping herself to free drinks all night, like she normally did, which he turned a blind eye to as Pearl was a good barmaid. She was quick on her feet, and could add up the cost of a round of drinks quicker than anyone he had ever known, and when she did make mistakes, they were intentional – but the till always tallied up at the end of the night, and that was all Bill was concerned about.

  ‘Well,’ Agnes forced out the words. ‘You’re just in time for a little impromptu party.’

  Pearl’s face lit up. Agnes knew her excitement would be down to the lure of free booze.

  ‘Well, I’m taking it that you’re off to get Beryl and her girls, so I’m guessing it’ll be all right for me to nip out the back and get Ronald round.’ It wasn’t a question.

  Ronald was Pearl’s new ‘friend’; his house backed on to the Elliots’ and Pearl was forever toing and froing across the back lane to see Ronald, or more often than not to smoke his cigarettes and drink his whisky. Ronald didn’t seem to mind, nor was he under any illusion as to why Pearl was a frequent visitor.

  As Agnes stepped outside and Pearl hurried in to the warmth, she turned round. ‘So, what’s the occasion?’ she asked.

  Agnes looked at her daughter-in-law’s mother in her short skirt, low-cut blouse, and pair of Mary Jane shoes – all of which looked slightly ridiculous on someone of her age. There had been a time when Pearl would have looked good, more than good – attractive, even – wearing such an outfit, but not now. The years had taken their toll on Pearl, although she seemed oblivious to the ravages of time.

  ‘I’ll let Bel tell you,’ Agnes said as she leant across the small stone wall and knocked loudly on her neighbour’s front door.

  As she did so she heard Pearl let loose a phlegmy cough before bellowing down the hallway, ‘Isabelle!’

  ‘So, then, Isabelle …’ Pearl said as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. Her eyes swept the room to clock Arthur sitting at the kitchen table, and Joe hobbling out of the scullery, one hand on his walking stick, the other clutching a bottle of brandy. Bel followed with a tray of sparkling clean glasses, and Polly was giving Tramp and the pup a bowl of water and some scraps of leftover food.

  ‘… What’s the big occasion?’ Pearl asked, as she started scrabbling around in her bag for her packet of cigarettes. She couldn’t wait to get out the back and have a smoke and then get Ronald round. He was bound to have a bottle of whisky she could persuade him to bring along.

  ‘Ma, I thought you were working tonight?’ Bel said.

  Pearl noticed that her daughter’s face had, as usual, dropped on seeing her.

  ‘God, for the second time tonight, Bill let me go early, there was no one about, dead as a doornail … so, come on, why the party?’

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly a party, Ma,’ Bel hesitated. ‘Just a little drink to celebrate.’

  ‘Party? Celebrate? Same thing. So then, what’s going on?’ Bel had freed a cigarette from its packet and was standing, fag dangling unlit between her fingers, her other hand clutching her lighter.

  Joe came over to Bel and put his arm around her.

  ‘Pearl, I’m pleased to tell you that your daughter has accepted my hand in marriage.’ He sounded very formal, and looked serious, as if daring Pearl to spoil the occasion.

  ‘Eee, well I never!’ Pearl looked genuinely surprised, then her eyes narrowed and she looked from Bel to Joe and back.

  ‘Ah, I get it,’ she said as if she had just solved a complex puzzle. ‘Has this one forced your hand, Joe? Is this going to be what they call a “shotgun wedding”?’

  Joe grabbed Bel’s hand and squeezed it tight.

  ‘No, Pearl,’ he said, before Bel had a chance to bark a retort. ‘No one’s forced anyone’s hand here. It’s much simpler than that. Your daughter and I love each other and wa
nt to be with each other for the rest of our lives. And that is the reason – the only reason – why I have asked her to marry me this evening.’

  ‘Ah, love, is it? So no bun in the oven? No younger brother or sister for little Lucille?’

  ‘God, Ma, not that it’s any of your business, but there is no “bun in the oven”, other than the ones Agnes makes and you happily stuff down your gob.’ Bel couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. She just hated the fact that her mother always managed to take what was good and honest and turn it into something demeaning and dirty. Bel took a deep breath. Since her mother had decided not to return to Portsmouth to be with some bloke she’d been shacked up with, Bel had been trying to simply accept her for who she was, to finally get it through her thick skull that Pearl would never be the Ma she wanted, and to try – hard though that might be – to stop herself getting so wound up by her.

  ‘Now go and have your fag. It might shut you up for five minutes,’ Bel said, looking down at her mother’s claw-like hand. ‘And, no,’ she added, knowing exactly what Pearl had in mind, ‘you can’t invite Ronald round.’

  As Pearl left the kitchen and walked out the back door, she let out a loud laugh. As always, she had to get the last word in.

  ‘Ah, you’re a good girl, Isabelle, take after your old ma here,’ she cackled at the irony. ‘Waiting until there’s a ring on your finger. Clever girl.’

  Anger flared up inside Bel, but she beat it down. Her mother’s words had stung – not least because they were hardly the words of congratulation a parent would normally bestow on a child, but also because, as was often the case with Pearl, they had an element of truth to them, in that, unlike her dear old ma, she would never give her body to a man if they weren’t married.

  Ten minutes later Pearl was back with Ronald in tow. Bel knew she couldn’t push the poor bloke back out the door and the men seemed more than happy to have him as part of the evening’s soirée as he’d come armed with a bottle of single malt.

  Beryl also arrived clutching a bottle of port, which was drunk in favour of Agnes’s cheap brandy. And Beryl’s two girls, Audrey and Iris, were allowed a glass of port and lemonade, which had the effect of making them very giggly, especially around Joe.

  It didn’t take Lucille long to wake up and realise that there was a party going on. When she came tottering into the kitchen – all bleary-eyed, clutching her raggedy pet rabbit – Pearl was the first to spot her.

  ‘Ah, you feeling all left out?’ she said, bending down to pick her granddaughter up. ‘Your nana knows that feeling only too well. Come on, let’s get you some lemonade.’

  Pearl’s voice always softened when she talked to her granddaughter. Pearl had really taken to the little girl. The love she felt for Lucille had crept up on her unwittingly and had been a surprise to everyone – no one more than Pearl herself.

  Lucille was happily surveying the party with her little legs wrapped round her grandmother’s thin waist, but on spotting Joe she shouted out, ‘Doey!’ and flung her arms out towards him.

  Pearl sighed. ‘Go on, then. Go to the golden boy,’ she said, handing Lucille to Joe as he hobbled over to them.

  ‘Doey! Party! Party!’ Lucille exclaimed, now wide awake.

  When Bel saw her little girl in her fiancé’s arms she smiled. Her mind tripped back momentarily to when Joe had first arrived back and she had hated the fact that Lucille had adored him so much. Bel sighed to herself. So much had happened in such a short space of time.

  ‘Well,’ she said, getting up from the table where the women were chatting away animatedly about just about everything and anything to do with weddings, ‘… look who’s joined the party.’

  Joe laughed. ‘Shall we tell her? Do you think she’ll understand?’

  Lucille turned her head to her mum, sensing something was afoot. Bel looked at her daughter and pushed a blonde curl away from her eyes.

  ‘Mummy and Doey …’ Bel said, ‘are going to be husband –’ she pointed to Joe ‘– and wife.’ Bel pointed a finger at the middle of her own chest.

  ‘So, that means,’ Joe added, ‘that we three,’ his hand circling between them all, ‘are going to be a family.’ Lucille giggled, enjoying the attention, even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was all about. But as Joe put her down so she could play with the dogs, she suddenly declared, ‘Daddy!’ and started excitedly chasing Tramp and the pup around the room.

  As the music and chatter became louder and more raucous, Joe whispered in his fiancée’s ear, ‘So, how soon can I make you my wife?’ He looked at Bel and added, with a cheeky grin, ‘I’m not keen to have one of those long-drawn-out engagements.’ Bel looked at Joe. For a brief moment she thought of her engagement to Teddy and how they had both been just seventeen when he had proposed to her and Agnes had persuaded them to wait until they were eighteen.

  ‘Let’s do short and sweet,’ she said, as Joe grabbed her head gently between both his hands and gave her a kiss.

  In the corner of her eye, Bel saw Agnes slip out of the kitchen, then heard her hurry upstairs to her bedroom. A few minutes later she returned with a very small blue velvet box. As she sat herself down next to Bel and Joe, it was clear to all that the matriarch of the house wanted to say something.

  Agnes’s eyes twinkled with more than a little emotion as she took hold of her son’s hand and pressed the small box into it. ‘This is my gift,’ she said softly. ‘Or rather, it is a gift from both me and your father,’ she looked at Bel, ‘to the both of you.’

  The room was now so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Agnes very rarely mentioned her husband, Harry, to anyone. Despite all the years that had passed since his death in the First World War, it was as if it was still too painful for Agnes to talk about him.

  Sensing the seriousness of the occasion, Lucille stopped racing around and settled herself on the thick clippy mat, with Tramp by her side and the pup squashed in her arms.

  Even Pearl and Ronald came in from the yard and were quietly watching the moment.

  Joe looked at his mother before opening the box. There inside was the most gorgeous, gleaming blue sapphire ring. It was framed by four tiny diamonds and set on a rose gold band.

  ‘Ma, that’s lovely,’ he said and looked at Bel, whose sparkling eyes perfectly matched the glinting stone.

  ‘Are you sure, Agnes?’ Bel asked a little breathlessly.

  She knew this was more than just a very beautiful, and very expensive, ring. It was Agnes’s way of saying that their marriage had her blessing. And Bel knew it must be difficult for Agnes. She had never wanted anyone after Harry had died and Bel had often worried that she might well judge Bel for falling in love so quickly after Teddy’s death – and with her other son, at that. But if she had had any reservations she had never shown them.

  ‘I wouldn’t have offered you it, if I wasn’t sure, Bel,’ Agnes said, smiling, ‘you’ve always been like a daughter to me.’ The words were out before she had time to pull them back in and she glanced a little guiltily over at Pearl.

  ‘Besides,’ Agnes added quickly to fill the awkward gap, ‘my old fingers are now twice the size they were when I was married, so it’s not as if I can ever wear it again, is it? It needs a new home, and I think it suits you down to the ground.’

  ‘Oh Agnes,’ Bel choked back the tears.

  ‘Go on then, Joe,’ Polly chipped in, ‘put it on her finger.’

  They all watched entranced as Joe slipped the ring on to Bel’s finger. It fitted perfectly.

  Bel held her hand out in front of her so everyone could see.

  ‘Agnes, I can’t thank you enough, I really can’t.’

  ‘Me too,’ Joe added, giving Agnes a kiss on the cheek before she had time to bat him away.

  ‘I think this requires another toast,’ Arthur chipped in, as Ronald happily unscrewed the top of the whisky bottle and splashed a generous amount of golden amber into everyone’s tumblers.

  ‘Happiness!’ Polly declared

 
; ‘And Health!’ Beryl added.

  ‘And don’t forget Wealth,’ Pearl chipped in, gawping at the ring and wondering how on earth Agnes had managed not to sell it, or at least pawn the thing.

  By the end of the evening Ronald’s bottle of whisky was empty, a good part of it having been consumed by Pearl, who had spent a substantial part of the evening out the backyard with Ronald as Agnes was still holding firm to her somewhat unusual rule of no smoking in the house. She had been going to relent, especially as Pearl was now a permanent lodger, but had been firmly stopped in her tracks by Bel, who didn’t so much hate smoking per se – she just hated her mother’s smoking. As the evening had worn on Pearl had seemed determined to smoke every cigarette poor Ronald possessed and had even made him go home to fetch more from his home across the back alley.

  When everyone had drunk and talked their way into the early hours, they all finally turned in for the night. Bel kissed her fiancé goodnight outside her bedroom, before he dragged himself away and into his own room next door with the words: ‘I love you. And always will, Bel.’

  Bel kissed him again in reply and closed her door.

  As she changed into her nightdress and climbed into bed she looked across at Lucille, sleeping soundly next to her in her open cot. Her head was spinning as she lay down. She would never have thought in a million years that she would be getting married again – least of all to her husband’s brother.

  Upstairs on the first floor, Agnes had gone to bed holding her faded sepia photograph of her husband Harry, remembering when he had proposed to her as they had lain on the beach one sunny day looking up into a cloudless sky. Sometimes it just seemed like yesterday – other times it seemed a lifetime ago.

  Arthur had lain in his bed and chatted to his Flo, who had been gone for more than two decades but who he still kept alive in his head and in his heart, and who he firmly believed was still very much with him.

  And just before sleep took her, Polly had re-enacted every second of the evening when Tommy had proposed to her after he had told her he had joined up and she had vowed to wait for him. She couldn’t wait to write and tell him the news.