A Distant Dream (30 page)

By the time the all-clear went, Joe was fast asleep. The trio made their way back to the house and George put his son into bed with barely a whimper from the boy.

‘Fancy a cup of cocoa, love?’ asked his mother when he came back downstairs.

Hesitating for only a moment, he said, ‘Yes please, Mum, that would be grand.’ He would much rather have gone to the pub for a pint and some male company, but his mother needed him in the short time he was home. He couldn’t offer her much in the way of support, things being as they were, but he could give her his company when he was around.

On Saturday afternoon George called at the Pavilion with Joe to say goodbye to May and her parents.

‘It’s been good to see you again, son,’ said Dick, who had the afternoon off from his job at the docks. ‘You take care of yourself out there and come back soon.’

Customers wished him well – anyone in uniform was warmly treated – then May’s father took over from her at the counter so she could say her goodbyes.

‘So you’re off again,’ she sighed as they ambled almost automatically towards the playground with Joe running on ahead.

‘Yeah, the leave has flown by, but at least it gave me a chance to see everyone and make sure all was well with Mum and Joe,’ he said. ‘Thanks for being so good with him.’

‘I’m his godmother; what else would I do?’ she said. ‘Anyway, I adore him so I love to be with him.’

‘Yeah, I can see that,’ he said. ‘So what do you in your spare time apart from helping look after my son?’

‘I do my bit for the war effort, knitting for the troops, fire-watching and so on.’

‘Mm.’ He looked at her. ‘But now that both Doug and Betty have gone, what do you do for fun?’

‘Not a lot,’ she replied. ‘I do go to the pictures sometimes of an evening with a friend I met in the sanatorium. She’s the same age as me.’

‘At least you have some young company, then.’

She nodded. ‘Oh yes. Don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough on your mind with a war to fight.’

A swing became free, so George put Joe on it and gave him a gentle push, whereupon the boy squealed with delight.

‘He’s great, isn’t he?’ said George.

‘Absolutely.’

‘I wonder how old he’ll be when I see him again.’

‘Maybe you’ll get another leave before too long.’

‘It will be a while, I expect,’ he told her. ‘I only got home this time because poor Betty died.’ He sighed heavily and shook his head. ‘I still can’t get used to the idea.’

‘Me neither. Still, let’s hope that next time you’re on leave it isn’t in such sad circumstances,’ she said hopefully.

‘Mm.’ He pushed the swing, looking around. ‘This place . . . the swings and the Pavilion, it’s ingrained in my mind. When I think of home, I think of here.’

‘Probably because we spent so much time here when we were growing up.’ May smiled. ‘In fact we were probably here for more of our childhood than we were at home.’

Yeah,’ he said, smiling. ‘Happy times.’ Then he frowned, remembering the trauma of his father’s death. ‘Most of it, anyway.’

‘Good grief! Neither of us is even twenty-one yet; we shouldn’t be looking back,’ May pointed out. ‘That’s something people do when they get older.’

‘You’re right; nostalgia is further down the line for us. Young people usually look to the future and the adult adventure ahead of them.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘I suppose we didn’t bargain on an adventure like the war. It’s being away from home, I think. It makes you reflective before your time.’

May wanted to weep at the sadness of parting, both at a personal level and for little Joe. But she just said, ‘You’re probably right. Still, at least now you can rest assured that your Mum and I will take very good care of Joe. I’ll drop you a line every so often to let you know how he is. I’ll get the address from your mum.’

‘Thanks, May. I’d like that.’ The truth was, he wanted to make love to her whenever he was around her now. All the innocent schoolboy hugs had to stop; it was just too tormenting. They were adults and both newly bereaved, and anything like that was out of the question. He’d lost his chance with her when he betrayed her with Betty, so just friends they must remain. ‘I’d better be on my way, if I can get that son of mine off the swing.’

They collected a reluctant Joe and May walked to the end of the street with them. Then, after a brief peck on the cheek from George, she watched until they were out of sight. Joe was too young to understand why people he loved disappeared out of his life. He would learn to get used to it, but he would miss his father for a while.

Feeling dreadfully sad, she walked back to work at the Pavilion, telling herself to snap out of it.

One day in April, May said to her mother, ‘I shall have to sign on for war work now. All young women without dependent children have to by law.’

‘Yeah, I heard about the new law, but it won’t apply to you because of your medical history.’

‘I shall still have to register so that my case can be considered,’ May explained. ‘I wanted to tell you just in case they do send me on to essential war work. We shouldn’t have a problem finding someone to take my place at the Pavilion if that were to happen. Older women aren’t obliged to register at the moment, so there should be a few who might want to work with you.’

‘I hope it doesn’t come to that,’ said Flo. ‘You and I are such a good team.’

‘Yes, Mum, we are, but we have to do what we’re told in wartime,’ said May.

The Labour Exchange was filled with women waiting to register for war work.

‘Best thing that’s happened to me in years,’ said a woman in the queue in front of May. ‘My husband can’t stop me going out to work now that Mr Bevin has made it law. Thank Gawd for that. It will be lovely to get out of the house and have a bit of dosh in my purse again.’

This was the general mood among the women, some of whom had been forced to resign from their jobs on getting married. Until now it simply wasn’t done for a decent married woman to go out to work. Now they could be put in prison for not having a job if they were eligible, and the age range for compulsory war work was expected to widen if the war continued.

When May’s turn came, she was told by the clerk that her details would be put on record but she was unlikely to be called up for work in a factory because of her medical history.

She felt relieved in a way because she knew that work in the munitions factories was punishing, but disappointed too, because she wanted to do her bit and the idea of working with younger women appealed to her. Oh well, she’d done her duty and registered, that was the important thing.

Although the air raids had eased off in London by the spring of 1941, they hadn’t finished completely. One night in April was so bad the Stubbses stayed in the Anderson until the early hours, hearing through the grapevine the next day that ten local people had been killed. There was also a rumour about St Paul’s Cathedral being hit.

But somehow life went on and people did their best to keep their spirits up. May still called at the Bailey home regularly and made sure she took an active part in Joe’s life.

The Pavilion continued to be a favourite meeting place for locals, and May found the company a great comfort. When the shop and the café were full of people chatting, she felt almost invincible. After a night spent in the shelter with nerves stretched to breaking point, the everyday dialogue – sometimes spiced with gossip involving a spot of adultery in the neighbourhood – was a tonic. Its ordinariness in the midst of these extraordinary and dramatic times had a therapeutic effect.

‘At least the weather is getting better now that we are into May,’ said one cheerful soul. ‘It isn’t quite so perishin’ cold in the shelter and we’ve got the summer to look forward to.’

‘On the other hand, clear skies mean good flying weather for the bombers,’ said a pessimist.

‘Ooh, cheer us up why don’t you?’ retorted the optimist drily.

Everyone laughed and the conversation turned to food and how to make it go further. Someone said they’d queued for two hours the other day for a piece of fish, which wasn’t rationed, and another mentioned that a friend of a friend had managed to obtain that most precious of edibles, an onion. They also discussed what was on at the pictures and on the wireless, running through their favourite bits of
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, which was popular with the nation in general.

‘I don’t know what we’d do without this place,’ said one of the customers in the queue. ‘Coming in here of a morning after a bad night makes me feel human again.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said someone else. ‘Bless you, Flo and May, for being here.’

People murmured in agreement, then someone brought them all back down to earth by saying in a jokey manner, ‘Give over, it’s our money they’re after.’

There was a general chuckle, which saved the company from sinking into sentimentality.

‘Who’s next, ladies?’ said May, because she and her mother had to keep working as well as take part in the conversation. ‘Come on, let’s get this queue moving.’

One night in May there was a full moon and the bombing was relentless. The Stubbses were settled in the shelter with a pot of tea and some wartime biscuits, which tasted a bit like dust and dried-up porridge. May and her mother knitted in the candlelight while her father tried to read the paper in the flickering candle glow.

The noise was deafening and the explosions sounded very close indeed.

‘It’s a bomber’s moon tonight all right,’ said Dick. ‘And they are making the most of it.’

‘They do sound very near,’ said May.

‘Probably a few miles away,’ suggested Flo. ‘You know how deceiving the noise can be.’

‘Someone local is getting it, that’s for sure,’ said May. ‘And human nature being what it is, we are all praying it won’t be us . . . or Dot and Joe.’

The night wore on and May was stiff and chilly and longing for the all-clear. Surely it must come soon. Suddenly there was the most tremendous crash and she said, ‘That really was close. I’m going up to see if the house is still standing.’

Waiting a few minutes for the noise of the plane to grow fainter, they all climbed out of the shelter to see with relief that the house was indeed still there, as were those around it. No sooner had they got back into the shelter, however, than the voice of the air-raid warden, who lived nearby, drifted down to them.

‘Flo, Dick!’ he shouted. ‘The Pavilion has copped it.’

‘Oh bloody hell,’ said Dick. He started to climb up to ground level, followed by his wife and daughter. After hearing that news, none of them were prepared to wait for the all-clear.

It was the middle of the night, but news still travelled fast and there were quite a few people hurrying towards what had once been the Pavilion. The street was littered with the remains of the stock – broken biscuits, battered tinned goods – and May spotted someone picking up a packet of cigarettes. People would grab what they could; it was only human nature in hard times, and she tried not to be upset by it.

In the brilliant light of the moon May and her parents could see that the Pavilion and the playground had both been completely demolished. All that was left was a smoking bomb crater. Being of a wooden construction, the Pavilion had been burned to a cinder. People just stood looking at the firemen working with their hoses, then, having offered their regrets to the Stubbses, they began to drift away. No one even noticed the all-clear.

‘Heartbreaking, isn’t it?’ said Flo early the next morning as she and May stood looking at the bombsite, still smoking slightly, mangled pieces of wood and iron from the playground lying around along with broken chairs and tables from the café, dust everywhere. ‘All that work, for nothing.’

‘We’ll rebuild it, Mum,’ said May, determinedly positive. ‘The government give people compensation for war damage. We’ll use that to pay for it.’

‘We won’t be allowed to rebuild it because of the wartime regulations,’ Flo reminded her.

‘Not now, but eventually we will,’ said May encouragingly. ‘After the war, when the ban on building is lifted, we’ll build a better Pavilion than ever, I promise you. As soon as it’s possible, we’ll have another café here on this exact same spot.’

‘In the meantime, people won’t half miss it,’ said Flo tearfully.

‘They will and all.’

‘It was more than just a building,’ said Flo.

‘I know it was, Mum,’ said May, putting her arm around her mother. ‘But at least there was no loss of life; we have to be very thankful for that.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Flo. ‘It was just that I absolutely loved running that place.’

‘And you will do again. One day after the war, you and I will be working together again in a place as much like the Pavilion as we can get it.’

‘The playground’s gone as well,’ said Flo. ‘Where will the kids play now?’

‘In the street, on the bombsite when it’s cleared, anywhere,’ said May. ‘They won’t have swings but they’ll still find somewhere to play. Kids always do.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Flo agreed tearfully, linking arms with her daughter. ‘Let’s go home and have a cup of tea and work out what to do next.’

Together they walked home.

As it happened, they soon had a diversion that took their minds off their own problems. Shortly after they got home, they had an unexpected visitor.

‘Connie,’ said May, answering the door and seeing a dishevelled figure standing there. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘We’ve been bombed out,’ she explained. ‘Mum and Dad and the others have gone to various relatives, but they’re very overcrowded, so I wondered if I could stay with you until they find us somewhere to live. I remember you saying you had a spare room that Doug used to have when he stayed over.’

‘Stay for as long as you like, dear,’ welcomed Flo, who had come up behind May.

‘I’ll pay rent,’ said Connie.

‘No you will not,’ said Flo, ushering her inside. ‘You can pay for your keep like May does, but no more than that.’ She looked at Connie. ‘As long as you’ve got your ration book.’

‘That was in the shelter with me,’ she assured her. ‘Mum always takes them down with us.’

‘Lucky you were all in the shelter when your house was bombed,’ Flo remarked.