A Distant Dream (22 page)

‘Thanks, Mrs Stubbs,’ said Doug.

It was another glorious afternoon and the veranda was gently shaded by the tree across the road.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ asked May. ‘You just disappear without a word . . .’

He made a face. ‘I know. It was unforgivable of me. Something came up and I had to go away. I’m really sorry. You’ll have to trust me on this one, May,’ he said, ‘because I’m afraid I can’t give you an explanation.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I haven’t been doing anything you would disapprove of, I promise you,’ he assured her. ‘I’m really sorry I let you down and disappeared like that. I’m hoping you can forgive me.’

She looked at him, mulling it over. A man breaks a date, disappears without warning and has no explanation for his absence when he turns up. He is prone to depressing dark moods and never mentions any serious intentions. A lot of women would tell him to get lost. But May thought more of him than to do something like that. Also, despite Betty’s crushing disagreement, she still believed that he might have been involved in the rescue at Dunkirk, even more so now that she had seen him and heard what he had to say. He’d probably been told not to speak to anyone about it, such was the secrecy of anything connected to the military.

‘I’m hoping we can carry on as we were before,’ he was saying, his expression becoming grave. ‘Though with quite a significant change, I hope.’

‘That sounds ominous. What sort of a change might that be?’ she wanted to know. ‘Nothing too dramatic, I hope. I’ve had enough shocks with you disappearing, boat and all. No more of that sort of thing please.’

‘Dramatic in a good way; at least that’s how it would be for me,’ he said.

‘Tell me what it is then, for goodness’ sake,’ she urged him. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense any longer.’

‘I want to marry you, May,’ he said, reaching over for her hand and looking into her eyes.

‘Oh.’ It was the last thing she was expecting at this particular moment.

‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ He was very tense.

‘You don’t have to go that far to persuade me to forgive you for disappearing,’ she said with a wry grin.

‘I’m not . . . that isn’t why,’ he began, looking worried.

‘Just teasing,’ she assured him.

‘Sorry to spring it on you,’ he said.

‘Spring it on me?’ she said, smiling into his eyes. ‘Far from it. I thought you would never ask, and of course the answer is yes.’

He leaned over and kissed her.

Flo saw this as she approached with the tea and smiled, delighted that it seemed to be all on again. Doug would never be her first choice for her daughter, but as she couldn’t have George he was the next best thing.

‘We are engaged, Mrs Stubbs,’ announced Doug with a broad smile, adding quickly, ‘though I know I have to get Mr Stubbs’ official permission first, of course.’

‘Oh that’s wonderful news,’ said Flo, thoroughly approving. ‘And as you’re going to be one of the family, Doug, can you please drop the Mrs Stubbs and just call me Flo.’

‘I’d be honoured.’ He smiled.

One good thing about his brief brush with the war, and the death he had seen in the waters around Dunkirk, was that it had made him realise just how short life could be, and that time wasn’t to be wasted in hesitation.

As the summer of 1940 progressed, hostilities became increasingly menacing on the home front, with the siren sounding day and night though a bomb had yet to fall in west London. The gloriously blue skies were alive with activity, as Allied and enemy aircraft battled it out overhead, leaving a maze of vapour trails. Warnings of imminent invasion were so frequent now, people were half expecting the German army to march up the street at any moment.

But for the most part, the general public still went determinedly about its business as normal, albeit interspersed with periods in the nearest shelter. Determined to carry on regardless, May caught up with an old friend from Ashburn. They met one Saturday afternoon in a Lyons tea shop near Marble Arch, which was a central point for them both.

‘You and Doug Sands, eh?’ remarked Connie, having been brought up to date and shown the diamond ring on May’s finger. ‘I always thought he had his eye on you.’

‘Yeah, I remember you used to tease me about it,’ said May. ‘I didn’t give it a thought at the time and could hardly believe my eyes when he turned up out of the blue one day at the Pavilion.’

‘He was a real dish as I remember him,’ said Connie.

‘Very much so.’

‘He seemed to be out of the ordinary in a suave sort of way, which made him attractive,’ recalled Connie. ‘What’s he like when you get to know him?’

‘He’s a lovely man . . .’

‘But?’ queried Connie, detecting a note of uncertainty in May’s tone.

‘He tends to be moody,’ she replied. ‘He was devastated when they turned him down for the services because he’s had TB. He took it personally.’

‘Male pride, I suppose.’

‘Mm.’

‘Mind you, I know how he feels to a certain extent,’ Connie mentioned. ‘I volunteered for the Land Army but was turned down for the same reason and I was very disappointed. The idea of working in the outdoors really appealed to me.’

‘That’s probably a legacy from Ashburn,’ said May. ‘Both Doug and I are fresh-air fiends.’

Connie sipped her tea. ‘I think you’d either come away from there wanting to avoid fresh air forever or not be able to get enough of it,’ she suggested.

‘We are so lucky to be alive, the three of us,’ said May in a more serious tone. ‘Not all that many people live to tell the tale after having that disease.’

Connie shook her head. ‘I still get nervous when I go for my check-up in case it’s come back,’ she said.

‘I know the feeling.’

‘So when’s the wedding?’

‘We haven’t actually got around to setting the date just yet,’ May told her.

‘You’d better get a move on, girl, before we’re taken over by the Germans. Lord only know what will happen to us then.’

‘It might not come to that, but anyway, Doug and I will take our chances.’

‘Apart from anything else, I fancy a bit of a knees-up,’ confessed Connie. ‘A wedding would be just the thing.’

‘You’ll get a wedding, don’t worry,’ May assured her. ‘We won’t be leaving it long.’

‘Will you live on his boat after you’re married?’ Connie enquired.

‘I suppose we could, though we haven’t really discussed that side of it yet,’ said May thoughtfully. ‘It would be one way of having our own place and it might be fun.’

‘So this moodiness of his, is it much of a problem?’ asked Connie. ‘I can imagine it might put a damper on things.’

‘It isn’t much fun.’ May leaned towards her friend and spoke in a confidential manner. ‘But as it happens, he’s been quite a lot better just lately.’

‘That’s good.’

‘And I think I know the reason for it,’ said May, speaking in a low voice so that she was only just audible above the babble of noise in the crowded tea rooms. ‘He disappeared a while ago, his boat as well, and he wouldn’t tell me where he’d been, but he proposed to me as soon as he saw me after he got back.’

‘So what’s the significance?’

‘I suspect that he was involved in the Dunkirk evacuation and that’s made him feel better about himself,’ she said. ‘They say there were lots of civilian boats taking part. It would all be top secret, which is why he wasn’t able to tell me where he’d been.’

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said Connie thoughtfully.

‘Anyway, since then he’s been much less moody and easier to get on with altogether.’

‘So you think that taking part in the war changed his personality,’ said Connie.

‘I know it seems a bit unrealistic,’ she said ‘And if a person is moody by nature they probably will be for life, but something happened while he was away, wherever he was.’

‘I should just enjoy it while it lasts.’

‘I will,’ agreed May.

‘What happened to the boy who broke your heart when we were at Ashburn?’ asked Connie. ‘The one who married your best friend.’

‘He’s away in the army, the Middle East somewhere, though we don’t know where exactly because they are not allowed to give any clue as to their location in their letters.’

‘He doesn’t write to you, does he?’

‘Of course not, but his wife keeps me up to date with news of him,’ she explained.

‘So you’ve got over him then?’

May made a face. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘He’ll always be very special to me, but I’ve accepted that he’ll never be mine.’

‘And you have the gorgeous Mr Sands to console you,’ smiled Connie.

‘Exactly. But that’s enough about me,’ said May. ‘Let’s have your news now. Is there a man in your life?’

Before Connie had a chance to reply, the wail of the air-raid siren filled the tea shop and everyone headed for the doors. May and Connie hurried towards Marble Arch tube station and joined the orderly queue to go down to the platform to take shelter, their conversation forgotten.

Corporal George Bailey was stationed near the Suez Canal. Their job here was to guard this vital stretch of water, but the men had recently been told that Italy was now at war with the Allies so they could expect to be in combat with the Italian troops sometime soon.

Their fiercest adversary at the moment was the stifling heat, which didn’t seem to abate much even at night. George longed for one of those grey, chilly English days when everyone grumbled about the weather.

His thoughts never strayed far from home and he was thinking about it now, as he and his mates took a break from duty, wondering how they were all getting along without him. He’d learned in a letter from Betty that his sister had joined the services, which had probably been a blow for their mother. On the other hand, if Sheila wasn’t around she couldn’t be hateful to their mother at the slightest opportunity. Poor old Mum, she used to be such a lively soul when Dad had been alive. His heart twisted at the thought of her managing without him. He doubted if Betty would offer her much comfort, because his wife had less patience than Sheila if that was possible.

His thoughts turned to Joe and he welled up. Every day away from him felt like a physical wound. May would be the saving grace at home; she would call in and keep the peace. Dear May, she also brought a tear to his eye.

Although he didn’t enjoy being away from home, George had adapted well to army life from the start and had been honoured when he was made up to corporal. He liked the physicality of the life and the camaraderie. He was one of the few men who had actually enjoyed the punishing basic training and thought it was probably the would-be boxer in him, a love of physical fitness that he had inherited from his father.

Even here in the suffocating heat he still found the energy to be sad about his dad’s death and angry with the killer who had ruined his mother’s life and health.

‘Fancy a game of cards, Corp?’ said one of his pals.

‘Yeah, all right, mate,’ he said amiably and turned his mind to the game as the desert sun burned down.

Soon after the German incendiary attack on the London docks in September, which devastated the East End, turned miles of dockside warehouses into an inferno and lit the sky so brightly the orange glow could be seen even from Ealing, bombs began to fall in other parts of London, including the west.

Every night the siren sounded and evenings spent in the shelter became the norm for May and her parents. Sometimes Doug joined them and used their spare room for a few hours’ sleep after the all-clear before cycling to work the next morning. No one got much rest but almost everyone carried on as normal. People were absolutely determined not to let Hitler disrupt their way of life any more than was absolutely unavoidable.

In the mornings, after she had done her paper round, May cycled to the Baileys’ house to see if they were all right, the air always heavily spiced with smoke and the smell of cordite. Sometimes she would pass the sad sight of a pile of smoking debris where a house had been the day before.

‘You’re all still here then?’ she said cheerfully one morning, standing at the Baileys’ front door.

‘Just about,’ said Betty, in pyjamas and with curlers in her hair. ‘Though the explosions were so loud last night I really thought we’d had it. The ground shook so violently it felt as though the shelter was going to cave in.’

‘I’ve heard that the Germans are after Northolt airfield,’ said May. ‘That’s why the bombing is so close.’

‘There are a lot of factories around and about as well,’ said Dot. ‘They’ll be wanting to wipe those out.’

‘How are you coping with it all, Mrs Bailey?’ asked May in a kindly manner.

‘Not so bad. We just have to get on with it, don’t we, dear,’ she replied.

Oddly enough, George’s mother had been better than expected since the start of the bombing. May had thought she would have a nervous breakdown at the first wail of the siren. Naturally she was very frightened of the bombs, as they all were, but Betty said she was quite calm in the shelter. May wondered if that might be because there was nothing anyone could do about this kind of danger. Dot’s nervousness in the past had always been about a lack of confidence in her own ability; looking after Joe and running the house and so on. The air raids just had to be endured, and whether you lived or died was out of your hands.

May herself felt a kind of resignation about the situation. Having survived the first week or so of the air raids, she had begun to think that perhaps it was possible to live through this. Though when an air raid was actually in progress she didn’t feel so brave.

‘Are you staying for a cuppa?’ asked Dot.

‘And have you use your tea ration on me? Not likely,’ said May, doing the decent thing and knowing that they wouldn’t insist that she stayed. Of all the shortages, the introduction of tea rationing was the hardest to bear for many people.

A small figure appeared, rubbing his eyes, his hair tousled from bed. As soon as Joe clapped eyes on May, his face lit up and he ran to her.

‘Hello, big boy,’ she said, picking him up and plonking a kiss on his brow. ‘Are you still sleepy?’

‘He shouldn’t be,’ said his mother. ‘He slept through the whole thing last night. He didn’t even stir when I carried him up from the shelter and put him into bed.’