All My Tomorrows (20 page)

Two of Rita’s colleagues at the fire station were retired builders and bricklayers, and they’d turned up with their tools and immediately started to replace the broken load-bearing beam with a sturdy railway sleeper and then repaired the scullery wall. Two other off-duty firemen brought ladders and fixed the tiles back in place and checked that the chimney was safe. A neighbour donated a door which had been sitting in his cellar for years, and Stan from the railway station brought a stone sink he’d been using in his allotment as a seed propagator.

An elderly man appeared from down the road and, without being asked, began to repair the garden’s flint wall, and another neighbour arrived with sheets of hardboard which he nailed over the shattered windows. Peggy had been a stalwart help to both of them when they were widowed, and this was their way of paying her back.

Fred the Fish and Alf the butcher had closed their shops during the lunch hour and got stuck into helping Ron repair the chicken coop, fix the fence and put the shed back together again. They all agreed that the outside lav was beyond repair, and so they added its remains to the bonfire Ron had lit in the far corner of the garden, where there was now also a pile of hard core.

When the fishmonger and the butcher had to leave to reopen their shops, their delivery vans were laden with the broken sink, lavatory and bits of metal, wire and piping that couldn’t be used or burned. It would all be taken to the town dump after their shops closed.

While the men were busy hammering, brick-laying and plumbing, Rita and Fran were organising the army of pinafore- and headscarf-clad women who’d arrived with buckets and mops, brooms and dusters. Peggy had always lent a hand when needed, had been a good friend and neighbour and a great source of comfort in darker times, and they were only too willing to show her how much she meant to them.

Ron and the other men had been barred from going into the newly cleaned kitchen in their dirty boots, but they were kept refreshed by copious amounts of tea that were brought into the garden on trays. The beds and windows had been stripped, the linen and curtains washed in the kitchen sink, the blankets and rugs beaten clean of dust out in the garden. Once Ron’s bonfire had gone out, the washing was pegged out on the newly repaired lines.

Harvey was petted and spoiled with biscuits and sweet tea, and he rushed about enthusiastically, getting under everyone’s feet. Ron finally rounded him up and ordered him to sit by the Anderson shelter and not move until given permission, and Harvey lay there as if he’d been shot, eyes mournful beneath the bushy eyebrows.

Ron grinned at the old chap who was making a fine job of repairing the flint wall even though he looked concerned about Harvey. ‘Take no notice of him,’ he said. ‘Harvey is the Humphrey Bogart of the dog world and every performance deserves an Oscar, so it does.’

‘Aye, I can see that,’ he replied round the stem of his unlit pipe. ‘He’s a lurcher, isn’t he?’

Ron nodded. ‘A Bedlington cross greyhound, probably with a bit of Irish wolfhound thrown in. Fast as lightning and a good nose – but a bloody nuisance at times,’ he said affectionately.

The older man grinned as Harvey rolled on his back, legs waving in the air as his tongue lolled. ‘One of the family, eh? That’s as it should be.’

Ron was about to offer him a pinch from his roll of tobacco when he heard a commotion going on in the kitchen. ‘I’d better see what that’s all about,’ he muttered as he handed the tobacco over. ‘With a house full of women there was always going to be fireworks. Help yourself to a pinch for your pipe.’

The men rebuilding the scullery wall and plumbing in the sink had paused in their work to listen to the argument going on upstairs, and they stepped aside as Ron pushed his way through with Harvey at his heels.

‘I’d take your boots off, mate,’ warned the plumber. ‘Sounds like they’re on the warpath up there, and that’s no place for a bloke at the best of times – especially if he drops muck on their nice clean floor.’

Ron realised this was good advice and toed off his wellingtons to reveal enormous holes in his socks. He yanked them off too and went, bare-footed, up the cold stone steps with Harvey padding closely behind him, to discover Rita and Fran in a heated argument with Doris, while the young Phyllis stood in mute anxiety in the hall doorway.

‘You can’t just come in here and start throwing your weight about,’ snapped Fran.

Doris stood squarely in the middle of the kitchen, her expression implacable. ‘They’ll get very little done if they don’t follow orders and do things properly,’ she retorted.

‘Every woman here has willingly given up their day to help clear up the mess because they love Peggy,’ Rita fired back at her. ‘It’s not up to you to order them about as if they were your servants.’

‘You’ve upset everyone,’ said Fran crossly, ‘and they’ve worked so hard today.’

‘Then they should have the common sense to think before they waste time doing things in the wrong order,’ retorted Doris.

Ron decided the situation needed cooling down, but diplomacy wasn’t really his strength and he struggled to be pleasant to this woman whom he disliked intensely. He stepped into the room and between the warring women.

‘It’s nice to see you, Doris,’ he fibbed. ‘Have you come to help?’

The tact was clearly lost on her as she turned her beady eyes on him. ‘Ah, Reilly. I wondered how long it would be before you deigned to put in an appearance.’

He swallowed a sharp retort. ‘As you can see, Doris, we are rather busy at the moment.’ He regarded her with a stiff little smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes. ‘And my name is Ronan. I would appreciate it if you could remember that.’ He rested his hand on Harvey’s head to silence the low growl that came from the dog’s throat as he sat at his feet. ‘Now, Doris, what can we do for you on this fine afternoon?’

‘I’ve come to bring organisation to this chaos,’ she replied stiffly. ‘It is patently clear that none of these women have the first idea of proper house management, for not only have they started here in the kitchen, they are now upstairs – which anyone with any sense knows is not the way to do things.’

Ron shot a glance at the silent Phyllis, who’d been joined in the doorway to the hall by several of the other women. ‘To be sure, I’m not thinking any of these wonderful ladies need any advice at the moment, Doris,’ he said carefully. ‘They are doing a grand job, so they are.’

‘Well, you would think that, wouldn’t you? Housework is hardly your forte.’

‘I didn’t realise it was yours either,’ replied Ron mildly. ‘I thought Phyllis did all the work in your place.’

‘I employ Phyllis to do the rough work, certainly, but that does not mean I am ignorant of the proper management of a household.’

‘To be sure, Doris, I realise your knowledge far outweighs mine – but in this instance, I think it would be wise to accept the good-heartedness of these lovely women, and be grateful for the sterling work that has been achieved here with love today.’

Perhaps realising there was little point in continuing the very public argument, Doris turned her attention to Ron and Harvey. Her cool gaze drifted from Ron’s filthy bare feet and horny toenails to his grubby clothes and unshaven chin, then trawled over a bristling Harvey. She sniffed in disdain. ‘I can see that things are going to have to change radically before my sister comes home.’

Ron felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Doris pulled off her coat and hat and handed them to a flustered and anxious Phyllis as she continued to glare at Ron. ‘You obviously cannot manage on your own once Daisy and Cordelia come home from the hospital. So I have decided to stay until Peggy is fully recovered.’

There was a gasp of horror from Fran and Rita and a murmur of dissent from the gathered audience as Ron’s heart sank to his boots.

‘But he’s not alone,’ protested Fran hotly. ‘He has me and the other girls to muck in. We managed when Peggy was lying-in after Daisy, and we’ll do it again now.’

‘I don’t see how,’ she replied. ‘You’re all at work most of the time, with strange shifts that often mean you’re out all night. Reil— Ronan, for reasons known only to himself, is heavily involved in running the Anchor – hardly the most salubrious of places to take my niece. He cannot be left in sole charge of a vulnerable baby and a half-witted old woman with a broken wrist.’

Diplomacy and pretence fled. ‘Cordelia’s not half-witted,’ exploded Ron, ‘and I’ll thank you to mind your tongue and keep your nose out of this family’s business.’

‘You forget, Ronan, that this is my family too. And I’m staying, whether you like it or not.’

He certainly didn’t want her here, but getting heated about it wouldn’t help an already explosive situation. ‘To be sure, Doris,’ he said with a forced smile, ’tis grateful we are, but we can manage just fine, and I’m sure Ted would prefer to have you at home.’

‘Edward fully understands the importance of my being here to make sure things are running smoothly while my sister is recuperating,’ she said stiffly. She turned away to coldly regard Phyllis and the other women grouped in the doorway. ‘Phyllis, hang my coat up and take my suitcase into Peggy’s bedroom. I shall need clean bedlinen, and make sure you’re careful when you unpack my silver dressing table set.’ Phyllis scuttled off.

‘Doris, I really don’t think—’

‘That’s the point, Ronan – you never do,’ she said flatly. ‘I will be taking charge of this household from now on, and that is final.’

Ron realised that nothing short of a bomb would shift the bloody woman – and with no armoury to defend his home from this assault, he could do absolutely nothing about it.

Doris scented victory and was now in full flow. ‘The rest of you, get upstairs and finish what you were doing. Once that’s done, you will clean the hall floor again and scrub the sink properly.’

There was a general mutter of complaint from the other women as Rita rushed to their defence. ‘The kitchen has already been done, and so has the hall,’ she said, her arms tightly folded round her waist, her expression stormy.

Doris eyed Rita up and down. ‘Not to my high standard,’ she retorted, ‘but then
I
was not born in a slum.’

Everyone gasped at this piece of nastiness, but Rita wasn’t about to let her get away with it. She took a step towards Doris, her little fists tight at her side, her face pinched with dislike as they stood almost nose to nose. ‘For all your posh clothes and fancy talk, you’re the rudest, most ignorant woman, Doris Williams,’ she said with quiet fury. ‘If Peggy was here, she’d send you back home, bag and baggage, with a flea in your ear.’

‘I hardly think you are in a position to decide what my sister might do,’ said Doris as she looked coolly down her nose. ‘After all, you’re not even family.’ Without waiting for a reply, she turned on her heel and headed for the hall and Peggy’s bedroom.

The women parted like the Red Sea to let her through, and then swarmed into the kitchen, all talking at once.

Ron could barely hear himself think in all the noise, but the message was clear. The women were united against Doris and not another stroke of work would be done today – not that there was much more to do, for they’d worked like Trojans since daybreak. He decided a cup of tea would soothe ruffled feathers, and set the large tin kettle back on the freshly blacked hob.

‘To be sure, that woman will drive us all insane,’ muttered Fran as she poured the tea into the thick mugs and handed them round.

‘Aye, no doubt she will,’ he replied, ‘but she has no authority here, and if we go on as we’ve always done, she’ll realise it soon enough and sling her hook.’

‘I wouldn’t hold your breath, Uncle Ron,’ said Rita, who was still simmering with anger. ‘Come hell or high water, that woman’s here to stay until Auntie Peg comes home.’ She followed the rest of the women who were now trooping down the cellar steps and out into the garden for a well-earned rest.

Ron poured himself a cup of tea and joined the women, who now seemed in a far more relaxed mood as they laughed and chatted with the men, lit cigarettes, drank their tea and enjoyed the sunshine. The camaraderie had always been strong, but he sensed it had been reinforced after that scene with Doris. He felt sick at the thought of having her here, but despite that, she’d had a valid point about caring for Cordelia and Daisy, which was even more galling.

Cordelia would be out of action with her arm in plaster for at least six weeks, and although he knew how to bath, dress and feed a baby, it would take a great deal of planning to work round everyone’s shifts, his duties with the ARP, the Home Guard and his responsibilities at the Anchor. He couldn’t always rely on Pearl and Brenda – there were pipes to clean, heavy barrels to be changed, books to keep up to date, bills to be paid and orders to be sent to the brewery.

He lit his pipe and sat gloomily on the pile of discarded bricks and mortar as Harvey rested his muzzle on his knee and looked up at him in commiseration. Ron stroked his head and wished mightily that his darling Rosie was here. But even if by some miracle she did come home, he couldn’t expect her to share the responsibilities of his household.

He gave a deep, weary sigh. He loathed Doris, but it looked as if he was stuck with her – and that could only bring trouble, for the battle lines had already been clearly drawn. The girls and Mrs Finch would form a united front against her and he would no doubt find himself stuck right in the middle of yet another war zone.

He gripped the pipe between his teeth. The next few weeks could prove to be the most difficult of his life, but he had to admit that he enjoyed a good tussle – it brought a zest to things as long as you didn’t let it get under your skin.

Chapter Twelve

THE CANTEEN WAS
a vast, echoing building at the heart of the factory complex, with long tables and benches and a serving counter that was managed by the men and women of the NAAFI. A wireless was playing some jolly music through a loudspeaker fixed to the rafters as the workers from the surrounding factories caught up with the latest gossip and exchanged funny anecdotes over their lunch. It was all very friendly, and Ruby and Lucy were greeted with smiles and asked how their first morning had gone as they stood in the long queue waiting to be served.