Dead to Me (22 page)

‘You see why I encouraged Amy to go away?’ he smirked. ‘My dear, resourceful little daughter, how lucky it is that you are in a job where you can find out who has cancelled their telephone because they’ve gone away.’

‘I can’t get that information,’ she said in horror.

‘You can,’ he laughed. ‘Dopey Amy even mentioned that it is part of your job to disconnect a line when it is not in use. Not that I would be so stupid as to encourage you to rob a house where you had been the person to do that. But I know you can easily look at someone else’s work sheets.’

‘I won’t do it,’ she said firmly. ‘You can’t make me.’

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Is that so? Believe me, Verity, I have many different ways of making sure you obey me. You won’t like any of them.’

Her heart was racing with panic, she felt sick and scared out of her wits.

‘How could you say such a thing to your own daughter?’ she asked.

He laughed again. ‘I wonder your aunt didn’t tell you. You aren’t my daughter. I never wanted any children. Your mother was pregnant when I met her, only she omitted to tell me that. I thought she was smart and sexy, and that together we could go places. It turned out she was neither of those things, just a lying, greedy, self-centred gold-digger. But by then I’d made the mistake of marrying her.’

A
letter from Miller was still lying on the doormat when Verity came home from work, which meant Archie hadn’t been back to Weardale Road for three whole days. She thought it would be marvellous if he’d cleared off with a woman, fallen under a train or even been killed in a bombing raid. But she couldn’t be that lucky. He’d been saying they were going to start their ‘new business’ any day now, and as she’d managed to get him a list of disconnected telephones in Kew and Putney, he could even be away checking out the addresses right now.

The house felt like an ice box. At least when he was there she came home to a fire blazing. Waiting for him to turn up again was nerve-racking. She felt unable to relax, knowing he could walk in the door at any moment. And there was always the threat, if she said the wrong thing or did anything he didn’t like, that he would hit her. He had struck her at Christmas, that was for saying she was going to spend Christmas Day with a friend from work. He’d slapped her round the face so hard she fell over, and told her she wasn’t going anywhere.

It was so very tempting to go to the police, to throw herself on their mercy and spill out the entire sorry story. But she had burgled the house in The Glebe, and she’d
sold valuables from Daleham Gardens when they were supposed to be left in the house for the bailiffs. But what the police would do to her didn’t frighten her half as much as Archie did.

He was as sly as a fox, the most plausible liar she’d ever met, and he could twist things to make himself look like the most tender-hearted father to any onlookers, and her the ungrateful, troubled daughter. Then there was the violence. She knew he was more than capable of giving her the kind of beating he had given her back at Daleham Gardens. And worse still there would be no warning when it came.

It had been a shock to be told he wasn’t her real father; to have believed he was for so many years seemed a terrible thing. Yet it was also a relief to know they shared nothing more than a name. One she intended to change the minute she could get away from him.

She picked up the letter from Miller, and just looking at his big, sprawling handwriting made her feel warm inside. She hung up her coat and took the letter upstairs to read it, just in case Archie came in.

Three weeks had gone by without a letter, which made this one even more precious. In his letter just after Christmas he’d suggested that she come up to Scotland for Easter.

She had the feeling that once she was with Miller, she would be able to tell him everything about Archie, and he’d find a way out of her problems. Of course she didn’t want to admit she’d burgled a house, that was shameful, but she felt Miller would take into consideration how much pressure she’d been under, and help her.

Just holding his letter in her hand made her feel less alone and frightened. Maybe she could even pour it all out in her next letter to him and get it off her chest.

She savoured opening the envelope, leaning back against the headboard of her bed, knowing in a few moments she would be transported to his world of forests, wild animals and wide open spaces. She started to read.

Dear Verity,

This is a very difficult letter to write, but I must do it, for to leave it any longer would be so wrong …

Verity frowned. This sounded like it was going to be a confession about something bad.

But surely not, Miller wasn’t that kind of man.

I am afraid I have met a girl up here. Because of that I must end our friendship, as she wouldn’t understand me writing to you. And besides, it wouldn’t be right to string you along thinking you were going to come up here at Easter for a holiday.

May I explain that I came to a different world up here, and I’ve found I’m not the man I was in London. I want different things now, another kind of life, and my new girl is a quiet wee thing who fits into the forest like a rabbit or a pheasant.

I have so many things in my head that I want to tell you, to make you see why this came about and where I am going, but all that will do is make me feel justified, and it won’t lessen your hurt and sorrow.

But I do think you need a very different man to me, and I sincerely hope you find him and have great happiness.

I thank you again for giving me shelter in your home, for being a good friend too, perhaps the best I’ve ever had.

Yours,

Miller

Verity let the letter drop on to her lap, and for a moment was transfixed with shock. Miller was the one good thing in her life, and he didn’t want her any more.

She sat there for some time before she could even cry. Only Miller could let a girl down so kindly; she could imagine him, pen in hand, trying to find the words that would hurt the least.

But however he dressed it up, she’d been abandoned for someone he liked better. She hoped his ‘quiet wee thing’ would turn out to be stultifyingly boring, and he’d be tormented in his dreams of all the laughs they used to have and those passionate kisses at Christmas.

It was ignoble to think bad thoughts about his new girl, but she couldn’t help it. Miller should have been her man, her future husband and father of her children. Now she had absolutely no one to turn to for help with Archie.

So she’d just have to go along with his plans.

Ruby
came out of Hither Green Station and for a moment just stood still outside, looking towards the Railway Hotel, the big pub on the corner which Verity had mentioned once while she was down in Babbacombe.

Ruby had been told while on the train from Charing Cross that Hither Green Station and the street next to the railway embankment had been bombed during the Blitz. Repairs had been made to the station, but from where she stood she could see the bombed street, the rubble only partially cleared, and she felt a pang for all those who had lost their loved ones and their homes.

The
Daily Mail
had reported just a short while ago that Torquay was a funk hole, where cowardly people were hiding from the war. Ruby very much resented that, as did most of its residents. So maybe there hadn’t been any really serious bombing incidents yet, but factories there were providing all kinds of goods needed for the war, and the locals worked very hard to reach targets, often above and beyond the call of duty.

Many of the hotels had been taken over by the military too; they used them for specialist training and for billeting men before shipping them off to the fighting. The Palace, where Ruby had worked before the war, was the main
hospital for RAF officers. She had been kept on as receptionist, and was in charge of the men’s medical records.

She had seen airmen with such terrible injuries that she now knew exactly what war was all about, and it had changed her. Gone were the days when she thought of nothing but going dancing and what dress she was going to wear. In her off-duty hours now she practised first aid, helped Wilby with the evacuees and collected old clothes door to door. These clothes were for people who had been bombed out, and she helped sort them into men’s, women’s, children’s and babies’ in a storeroom above a shop in Reddenhill Road.

This change in her had also made her see how badly she’d treated Verity, and she’d already been up to London twice, once in the late summer of 1940, and then again last year. Both times she’d seen Verity from a distance but hadn’t spoken to her.

Wilby said it was daft to get so near, then to back off. All she had to do was write a letter and apologize. But Ruby had put pen to paper so many times, and yet she could never find the right words to explain herself.

Today she was determined to speak to Verity, even if she had to stay another night in London to do so. She’d come up this time to check on her mother. A well-meaning air-raid warden had reported to the police that she was in a bad way, and they in turn had telephoned Wilby.

The air-raid warden had found her huddled in an alley with a black eye one very cold night, and he’d got the idea she couldn’t go home because of a violent husband. In fact she was just drunk and confused, she couldn’t even remember who had hit her. When Ruby saw her, she read her the
riot act about looking after herself, then cleaned up her room and left.

She had no sympathy for her mother. There were so many people in real difficulties all over England, and most of them were grateful for any help. Ruby saw no reason to waste time or energy on a woman who would never change her ways, even if she was her mother.

The first time Ruby had come to Hither Green, in the summer of 1940, to see Verity, she was attending a three-day medical course in New Cross. It was far more intensive than basic first aid, intended to train civilians like her in case there should be a very serious incident where they needed to pull in extra people with medical knowledge and practical skills to help.

She had gone to Weardale Road on an impulse, because the course ended earlier than she’d expected and her train back to Torquay didn’t leave Paddington till seven in the evening.

Reminders of Coronation Day and the Weardale Road street party came to her as she approached the house. Everything still looked much the same, but shabbier.

She knocked on the door, but there was no reply. She was still standing there, wondering if it was worth coming back a bit later, when a fat middle-aged lady spoke to her.

‘You won’t find anyone in till later,’ she said. ‘Both of the young ladies work for the Post Office and they work shifts. I saw them going off before six this morning, giggling like they was going on a fun day out.’

Ruby sensed this woman with a sour face didn’t approve of anyone who enjoyed life. She also sensed she was the
street gossip and it would be wise not to give her any ammunition.

‘I wasn’t looking for a young woman,’ she said. ‘It was Miss Ferris I was looking for. I suppose she’s at her work too?’

‘Didn’t you hear, love? She died a couple of years back. She’d turn in her grave too if she knew her niece had had a male lodger since then, and now this brassy blonde with her tight skirts and her bright red lipstick. Heaven only knows what the two of them get up to alone in that house without supervision.’

Ruby hadn’t known about Verity’s Aunt Hazel dying, and it made her feel sad that she hadn’t been in touch to comfort her old friend. But she wasn’t going to let that slip. ‘I’m sorry to hear about Miss Ferris,’ she said, determined not to rise to the woman’s spiteful remarks about Verity. ‘I was just hoping she’d make some curtains for me. What did she die of?’

‘A heart attack at her work,’ the older woman said. ‘Hardly surprising, really, what with the trouble of having that sister of hers turning up uninvited with her kid and expecting poor Miss Ferris to take care of them. That lazy good-for-nothing never did a thing for her sister when she was living in a posh house and the kid was at private school. But as soon as that crook of a husband of hers disappeared and the woman fell on hard times, she came here expecting handouts.’

‘How unpleasant for Miss Ferris,’ Ruby said. She thought the woman’s venom against Verity’s mother was harsh and unnecessary. She wondered if she was the same gossip Verity had spoken of sometimes.

‘Then her sister went and stuck her head in the gas oven!’

‘Did she really?’ Ruby exclaimed. She knew already, of course. She’d seen how much it had affected Verity too, but she wasn’t going to say anything that would blow her cover. ‘Well, thank you for your help, obviously I’ll have to find someone else to make my curtains.’

Ruby walked away; she had the feeling if she talked to that unpleasant woman for any longer, she’d say something she’d later regret. She was very shocked to hear of Aunt Hazel’s death, poor Verity must have felt very alone, with her mother gone too. Ruby wondered about the male lodger. Was he her boyfriend? She just hoped, if he was, it hadn’t all gone wrong for her.

Ruby thought that if Verity had gone to work at six this morning, she’d probably finish at four, so she went to a cafe in Lee High Road, right across from the end of Weardale Road, ordered tea and a sandwich, and waited.

She had read an entire local newspaper, including the obituaries, and was just about to give up and leave when Verity jumped off a bus, with another girl.

The pair of them stopped almost outside the cafe and it looked as if they were discussing whether they needed anything from the shop before going home. It gave Ruby the chance to get a good look at her old friend.

She looked very pretty, and far more womanly now; she’d only ever had the tiniest of breasts before. Ruby remembered how she used to despair of them ever growing. But they had now, and she was radiant, her blonde hair plaited around her head like a crown, and her face tanned. She was wearing a blue polka-dot shirtwaister
dress Ruby remembered. The wide navy-blue belt around her waist made it look tiny. She had white socks and plimsolls on her feet, and her legs were very brown, so she must have been outside a great deal during the summer.

Ruby’s whole being wanted to run out of the cafe and hug her, but Verity had her head thrown back, laughing heartily at something the other girl was saying, and Ruby felt she had no right to intrude.

Whatever the gossip of Weardale Road had said about this friend, she looked nice, with a generous mouth and a wide smile. Ruby hoped she’d be a better friend to Verity than she had been.

So Ruby didn’t try to speak to Verity that day. She told herself she would write and explain that she’d seen her but was too afraid of rejection to speak.

But the war kind of took over just after that. Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and then the Blitz brought so many wounded men to the hospital in the Palace, and she found herself working eighteen-hour days, with no time to think of anything but the suffering all around her.

The second time Ruby came to London was last year, when she accompanied two airmen on crutches who were going home to the north of England, and needed assistance with changing trains in the city.

Ruby could scarcely believe the changes in London with bomb damage everywhere, boarded-up windows, great gaps in the rows of houses around Paddington, and people looking weary and grey. The so-called Blitz might have ended, in as much as the bombing wasn’t every night like it had been back then, but Ruby heard from people
that when the bombers came back it was still terrible. There were shortages of everything from paint to petrol, people were living on next to nothing, and it showed in their lean bodies and drawn faces.

Down in Devon, they could still get butter, cheese and meat from various sources. Even strictly law-abiding Wilby didn’t mind a bit of black market produce, so she could feed what she called ‘her family’ – the three evacuees, along with Ruby. They also kept chickens and grew vegetables in the garden, so their diet hadn’t changed that much.

Ruby didn’t get as far as Verity’s house in Weardale Road the second time. She had just come out of Hither Green Station when she saw Verity walking towards her, with a man. She darted into one of the telephone boxes outside the station and watched them. He looked about fifty, a big good-looking man with wide shoulders and greying hair. He fitted with what Verity had said about her father. But surely it couldn’t be him? Verity had always claimed she’d never have anything to do with him again. They appeared to be arguing about something. And it looked to Ruby as if Verity didn’t want to go with him, because he caught hold of her wrist and practically dragged her into the booking hall.

Ruby came out of the telephone box to follow them, hoping for some sign she should engage with them. But the man bought train tickets and then, still holding Verity’s wrist, he headed straight for the tunnels that went up on to the platforms.

He was going on a southbound train out to Kent, but Ruby’s ticket was a return back to Charing Cross. She was
tempted to throw caution to the wind and follow them, but she decided that approaching Verity on a busy train when she was accompanied was hardly likely to result in a successful reunion.

So Ruby decided to let it go.

When she got home, she asked Wilby what she thought. But Wilby just pulled a pained face. ‘I’ve told you a dozen times to write to her,’ she said. ‘Last time you went, you discovered her aunt had died and I told you then that you should send her a letter of condolence. But you didn’t listen. Tell me, you silly girl, how many more years is this going to go on for?’

Ruby knew Wilby was right, and that night she lay in her bed crying. Not just because of Verity and what had passed between them, but because of all the sadness, everywhere in the world, since then. Little evacuees had come here from London, poorly dressed, underfed and crawling with lice, yet they’d cried for their mothers and wanted to go home. One of them, Jack, lost his mother when their home was bombed last January in Stepney. Wilby had kept the boy, hoping to adopt him, but just when she thought no relative would ever claim him, his grandmother did.

There were the wounded airmen at the Palace too. Some with terrible, disfiguring burns. They acted tough and brave, but she’d often gone into the wards at night and heard them crying. They knew, as everyone did, that they were unlikely to marry and have children, most would have difficulty in even getting a job. What sort of a thank you was that for someone who had given his youth and health to defend his country?

Daily, Ruby spoke to young women whose husbands
were away at the war. Their lives were one long round of anxiety, afraid that any day they would get a telegram to say their man had been killed in action. Some of them had been pregnant when their husband left, others had two or three small children, and they had a hard time coping with everything all alone.

Some of the married women who worked at the Palace kept telling Ruby to make the most of the opportunities this war offered. She had the job other women envied, because they just saw her as a pretty face behind the reception desk. In fact her role was not just ornamental, as they seemed to think. Aside from keeping all the patients’ records, she was the sympathetic ear when distraught relatives arrived to see badly wounded airmen. She made bookings for these people to stay in nearby hotels, arranged transport for them. She relayed messages to everyone, from surgeons down to cleaners, and every memo pinned up in the canteen, every instruction on what to do if there was an air raid, and even the menu of the day, was typed up by her and distributed to the right place.

The hospital manager had told her on several occasions that she was a ‘treasure’. This was because she had earned the reputation for sorting out any problem. But when older women told her to make the most of opportunities, they didn’t mean furthering her career but finding herself a good husband. The Palace probably was an ideal hunting ground, not just amongst the officers who were patients but also the doctors, friends of the patients, and men who were in administration.

But Ruby just wasn’t interested in luring any man, not an officer, bus driver or air-raid warden. Even she thought
it was odd that a girl who had once been such a flirt didn’t attempt it any more. She had lost the desire for men ever since her abortion. Sometimes, if she drank enough at a dance, she could flirt a little with dance partners, perhaps even kiss them and fake some passion. But no amount of drink could ever make her go further than kissing. Sometimes she felt she was dead inside.