Ellie (46 page)

‘We’re going to be married.’ Mr Gilbert blushed and smiled, looking almost boyish. ‘How about that?’

‘I’m
so
happy for you.’ Ellie smiled at them both, warmed right down to her toes. ‘I can’t think of two people better suited. I wish you’d been married when I came to Bury St Edmunds!’

‘You were the reason we got to know each other again,’ Miss Wilkins said and there was a softness in her eyes which suggested she fully understood what Ellie meant. ‘We’d been friends as children, but after Grace went away I often called round to see Amos and one thing led to another.’

‘You started the change in my life, Ellie.’ Mr Gilbert’s grey eyes had so much more fire and life in them now, and there was no longer any similarity to his sister. ‘Dora accomplished the rest. I gave up the funeral business, sold the whole premises and bought a small cottage with a couple of outhouses. Now I’m a carpenter.’

‘You should see the work he does,’ Miss Wilkins said proudly. ‘He’s made an exquisite table for Mrs Dunwoody and he’s got so many further orders. Right now he’s working on a round supper table for us, but we hope you’ll come down for the wedding and see it all for yourself.’

Ellie just listened. She wanted to ask about Miss Gilbert but couldn’t bring herself to. Perhaps Miss Wilkins understood: she gently stated that Grace had died eighteen months earlier following a stroke, and then quickly moved on to happier subjects.

She spoke of neighbours in High Baxter Street and children Ellie had been at school with. She described the cottage Amos had bought so vividly that Ellie could picture it: sun streaming in through tiny windows, lovingly made furniture, colour and warmth, the sort of home two such selfless people deserved.

‘But enough of us.’ Miss Wilkins was suddenly reminded that Ellie hadn’t volunteered any information about how she’d lived before this show. ‘Now the last letter you wrote to Amos, you were working in a restaurant. How did you get this part? And how is your Aunt Marleen?’

Ellie hesitated, she didn’t want to spoil the evening by relating sad news, but there was no alternative.

‘I’m so very sorry,’ Amos said gruffly when she’d finished telling them, putting his big hand over Ellie’s. ‘We only met once, under difficult circumstances, but I know how much she meant to you. It explains too why I didn’t get replies to the letters I sent to Gray’s Mansions. You poor Londoners had such a terrible war.’

Ellie moved on to explain how she sang at the Blue Moon, came to meet Ambrose and then got her big chance.

‘The show’s going to run and run.’ Miss Wilkins had passion and belief in her voice. ‘You have a great talent, Ellie, and I’m proud to think I helped it along.’

‘I’m thrilled for you.’ Mr Gilbert smiled. ‘Dora and I have talked about you so often. We always thought you’d make it one day. We just didn’t expect it so soon.’

*

It was after twelve when Ellie waved goodbye to them as they went off in a taxi to their hotel in Bloomsbury, but the bubble of happiness they’d spun temporarily around her burst the moment she opened the door of her room.

The stolen clothes were lying on her bed, along with her torn green dress, and all at once she felt cheap, soiled and unworthy of the admiration Amos and Dora had shown her.

She swept the clothes to the floor angrily and burst into tears. It ought to have been the happiest night of her life, when all her sad memories were washed away by new beginnings, but instead she felt only shame and degradation.

Lyons Corner House was quiet, with no more than ten people on the ground floor and the assistants chatting behind the self-service counter. Charley was sitting at a table by the window, looking out towards Trafalgar Square, so deeply immersed in thought he didn’t even glance round as she came in through the door.

His shoulders were hunched, elbows on the table, a couple of newspapers before him, and judging by the cigarette smoke wreathed round him, he’d been there some time.

‘Hello Charley.’ Ellie managed little more than a whisper as she tapped his shoulder. ‘Am I late?’

He jumped up and although he attempted a smile it didn’t warm his eyes. ‘I got here early,’ he said, but even that sounded like a reproach. ‘I was reading the reviews, they’re good ones. I’ll get some tea. Would you like a cake?’

‘Just tea,’ she said and sat down.

He hesitated for a moment, looking down at her, but then turned and walked away to the counter.

Ellie’s stomach felt like someone was wringing it internally. She had been awake since six this morning, going over and over in her mind what she was going to say, but now she’d seen him it was all different. Her life was worth nothing without Charley. She didn’t even care enough to open the newspapers and read the reviews.

As she watched him shuffling sideways along the counter putting cups on the tray and then reaching for the pot of tea, she had a sudden, clear vision. She was standing on a dock, a stretch of grey choppy water between her and a huge liner. Charley was standing at the rail of the liner and as it slowly pulled away from the dock, his features slowly became indistinct.

‘Will you marry me?’

Ellie started. She’d been so immersed in her vision she hadn’t noticed he’d come back to the table. His proposal shocked her back into reality. ‘That’s a bit sudden,’ she said, thrown now, her prepared speech forgotten.

He said nothing, just placed the cups on the table, the milk jug and the teapot, then sat down. Ellie didn’t dare look at him. She picked up the milk and poured some into the cups.

‘Where were you on VE night?’ he asked and she was forced to meet his eyes. They were cold and suspicious, just the way they’d been the night she went out with Jimbo. ‘I went to your room half a dozen times and you didn’t come back.’

‘I went to a party with some of the girls.’ She shrugged her shoulders, hoping that would be enough of an explanation.

‘Why didn’t you phone the fire station, or even Mum’s house?’ he asked.

‘I thought you’d be too busy to speak to me.’

‘You didn’t even think of me,’ he spat at her suddenly. ‘That’s what really hurts, Ellie. You were out having fun and I never even crossed your mind. It isn’t your career that’s the problem. It’s because
you
just don’t care enough.’

‘I wish that was true,’ she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘I do care, Charley, far more than you’ll ever know.’

‘Do you know what happened to us firemen that night?’ His voice rose, his face contorted with anger. ‘People shouted abuse at us because we put out fires they’d started. A woman actually spat on me and said we were killjoys. Back in the Blitz they said we were heroes. People’s memories are short, aren’t they? And yours is shorter than anyone’s.’

‘It’s not, Charley,’ she pleaded with him, wishing she could find something to take away the hurt in his eyes. ‘I haven’t forgotten anything, not how you dug out Marleen, or the way you came to the hospital and took me home. Or any of the good times back in Coburgh Street.’

‘That’s not love, that’s merely gratitude,’ he said bitterly. ‘I’m not good enough for you, am I?’

Ellie thought she’d worked out all his counter arguments in advance, but this was one thing that hadn’t even crossed her mind. Now, with so much guilt inside her, it was unbearable. ‘
I’m
not good enough for you,’ she said brokenly. ‘I couldn’t make you happy.’

‘You wouldn’t have to
make
me happy. I’d be happy just to have you by my side. Marry me and come to Australia. If you can’t do that then there’s nothing more to say to one another.’

Ellie closed her eyes. It was so tempting to agree: that tight, suspicious expression would vanish from his face, he would sweep her back to Coburgh Street, she would be welcomed by Annie, everything would be wonderful again and all the preparations for the wedding and immigration would banish her guilt.

She opened her eyes again. He was looking at her with challenge in his eyes, daring her to stall.

An honest, open face, a man who would never lie to her. How could she even consider accepting his proposal without first telling him the truth about her?

‘I can’t, Charley,’ she began. ‘I –’ she stopped suddenly.

‘Go on,’ he prompted. ‘Why can’t you?’

The truth was there on the tip of her tongue, but all at once she knew it would wound him too badly. She must let him keep his pride intact. It was bad enough to let him believe she was turning him down for a life on the stage. But it was kinder than admitting she’d been with another man.

‘Because I can’t give up my career,’ she said in a low voice, fighting against breaking down. ‘I don’t want to go to Australia.’

He stood up, gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white. ‘Well that’s it then,’ he said, and she saw tears well up in his eyes. ‘I’d like to wish you luck, but I can’t. I’ll just say goodbye.’

Ellie watched him rush out of the door, forcing herself to stay in her seat and not run after him. The show meant nothing now. She would give anything to turn the clock back forty-eight hours and instead of going out with Bonny, be making her way over to Coburgh Street to spend the day with Annie until Charley came home.

Marleen was wrong. Men weren’t ten a penny, not like Charley. She would never love anyone like she loved him, and he’d gone for good now, believing she preferred bright lights to him.

‘I don’t understand,’ Bonny said again. She had come round to Stacey Passage to call for Ellie and found her lying on her bed sobbing her heart out. It had taken some time to get the entire story, and although she’d heard it clearly enough, Bonny was baffled about Ellie’s reasoning.

‘Because I couldn’t do anything else,’ Ellie sobbed.

Since Bonny had joined Ambrose’s dancing troupe, she had pushed Jack into the background. She met him when she needed love and affection, stalled him when there were more exciting things happening. She believed she loved him, no other man excited her so much, but she never felt any guilt about picking him up and dropping him as the mood took her. He would be in the army for some time yet; she would consider him more seriously once he was demobbed.

Until today she had assumed Ellie was the same way about Charley. She hadn’t quite grasped that Ellie had a different conception of love, and a very different moral code to her own.

Now, seeing Ellie so terribly upset, Bonny felt a surge of unexpected tenderness. She put her arms round her, cradling her, and this instinctive reaction brought home how important Ellie was becoming to her.

‘Don’t cry any more,’ she murmured, smoothing back Ellie’s hair the way she remembered her mother doing. ‘Maybe it’s for the best. He’ll back out of going to Australia, you’ll see. He’ll come back saying he wants you on any terms.’

‘He won’t,’ Ellie sobbed. ‘He’s got too much pride. I can’t bear the pain, Bonny. I wish I could die.’

Bonny lay back in the steaming bath. Her skin was fiery red, forehead dripping with sweat and the bottle of gin was empty beside her.

‘Ger’anover kettle,’ she said drunkenly, her mouth slack and her eyes almost closed.

‘No more, Bonny,’ Ellie pleaded with her. ‘This is stupid.’

On VE Day, when they’d compared their identical shapes in the ancient mirror, the bathroom hadn’t seemed quite so grim. But the events of that day had tainted everything, like the black smuts flying from out of the old geyser. The window was cloudy with grime, the lavatory caked with brown limescale. It wasn’t a place anyone would choose to linger in.

‘Jus’ do it,’ Bonny insisted.

Ellie hesitated before opening the door. She was afraid to leave her friend in case she passed out and drowned in the deep, almost boiling water, yet at the same time she felt compelled to go along with this barbaric attempt to bring on a miscarriage.

In the days that followed VE night, Ellie had been too distraught about Charley even to think that there might be other repercussions. While she had cried herself to sleep night after night, too tormented by guilt and shame to take an interest in reviews or packed houses, she hadn’t even considered that one of them might be pregnant.

When Bonny complained her period was late, Ellie thought it was another one of her tall tales, a ruse to gain sympathy. But when she saw for herself that Bonny’s breasts were getting larger and saw how queasy she was in the mornings, she had to take it seriously.

It was now the end of June and Ellie had agreed to help her with the gin and hot bath treatment.

She boiled another kettle upstairs. It was a Sunday afternoon and London was in the grip of a heatwave. Although the window in her room was open wide, there wasn’t enough of a breeze to flutter the curtains, or dispel the lingering cooking smells on the staircase.

The sound of violent retching alerted Ellie. She turned off the gas and ran down the stairs, barging back into the bathroom. As she opened the bathroom door she recoiled in horror. Bonny had vomited over the side of the bath, projecting it up the walls and over a clean towel on the floor, and the smell was appalling. Worse still, Bonny was lifeless, only one arm over the side of the bath preventing her from sinking under the water.

Ellie stepped over the mess and pulled out the plug. Grabbing a flannel, she doused it in cold water and wiped her friend’s face.

Bonny’s eyes opened a crack. ‘Tolsho,’ she said, her mouth slack and senseless.

Ellie assumed this meant it was working. ‘Get up,’ she said, trying to lift her friend under her arms. ‘I’ll get you into bed.’

Hauling a wet and slippery body from the bath was an endurance test. Time and again Ellie almost got Bonny out, but then lost her grip. By the time she managed to get Bonny hoisted over her shoulder, Ellie’s cotton dress was soaked and she’d slipped on the vomit. All the time she was afraid one of the other tenants would come up the stairs and catch her hauling what looked like a dead body up to her room.

Bonny had been in Ellie’s bed for less than ten minutes when she was sick again, this time all over the sheets and blankets. Her skin was still fiery red, she was unconscious, and her breathing laboured.

Day slipped into evening, with Bonny waking up now and then to retch into a bowl, before passing out again. Ellie ran up and down stairs, cleaning the bathroom, washing the sheets and bringing bowls of water to sponge Bonny down. The smell of vomit and gin permeated the entire house, but that was nothing compared to her terror that Bonny might have done herself a permanent injury. Her face was green now. When she opened her eyes they were glazed and there was nothing inside her to bring up but bile.