Home Sweet Home (39 page)

Mrs Kepple began taking off her hat and coat on her way to the kitchen. Frances followed, Charlie just behind her asking when he was likely to get his jam tart.

His shrill little voice rang out along the passageway with its bumpy floors and scattered rugs. ‘Strawberry jam or plum jam?'

‘Plum,' exclaimed Mrs Kepple, both arms raised in the process of taking off her hat. ‘Take a seat, dearie. Oh, look. The kettle's already on. I expect Miriam saw us coming. Hang on and I'll give her a shout.'

Her small feet padded over the scattered rugs, the loose floorboards creaking with each step. Frances watched her go, a small gripe in her stomach.

‘Charlie have more?'

Charlie wasn't exactly asking for another jam tart, but actively taking one from the plate on the table.

‘You already have,' Frances said with a sense of defeat. Charlie had a habit of taking before asking. She presumed he would grow out of it, though what did it matter if he didn't?

Mrs Kepple was already on her way back along the passageway, a cheery smile on her face. ‘She's put the baby down for a sleep. She'll be down shortly.'

The lid on the kettle began to lift with the pressure of the steam rising upwards. A stream of it puffed from the long spout. Frances offered to make it. ‘You put your feet up. And take your coat off.'

‘Oh dear,' said Mrs Kepple, looking down at the front of her coat. ‘I didn't realise I still had it on.'

Frances's heart began to thud at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs and along the passageway.

The young woman in the doorway appeared dumbstruck. ‘Frances!'

Miriam's face was more animated than Frances had ever seen it. Once she'd got over the initial shock, she gave Frances a hug and tousled Charlie's shock of black hair.

‘You are so like your daddy,' she said to him, and Frances noticed a wistful look in her eyes.

For his part, Charlie looked up at her with wary amazement. He was too young to remember her as the lady who'd taken him from his pushchair and down into the woods at California Farm. None of the family now believed that he'd simply wandered off. Miriam's behaviour both at that time and after had made them believe otherwise.

‘I bet you didn't know I'd left the forest,' Miriam exclaimed, her staring eyes touched with a brilliance that wasn't quite sane.

Frances was unnerved. Her tone was sceptical. ‘No. I didn't even know you were married.'

‘He's in the navy! He's a sailor! Just like Charlie was.'

‘A merchant seaman? Like Charlie?'

‘That's right. Not a sailor, a merchant seaman. That's it.'

‘Would anyone else like a jam tart?' Mrs Kepple poured the tea and pushed the plate of jam tarts into the middle of the table. Charlie helped himself to a third one. Frances apologised and told him to put it back. Her attention kept going back to Miriam. Something was very wrong here. She didn't seem sure whether her husband was a sailor or a merchant seaman – and there was definitely a difference. Perhaps she didn't know who the father was.

Mrs Kepple's voice regarding Charlie and the jam tarts interrupted her thoughts.

‘Don't worry, me dear. He's welcome to it. I got a nice tin of jam from my shopkeeper. It had no label on it so he said I had to take pot luck. I tell you, I was lucky to get it. Once the word got round, the queue was a mile long!'

She chuckled amiably and so did Charlie, his face beaming with pleasure.

Although she smiled and talked pleasantly to Miriam, Frances couldn't shift the feeling of unease. She felt extremely uncomfortable. There was something brittle about Miriam's brightness, every so often her gaze shifting away, anywhere but looking at Frances. It was as though all that she was saying had been carefully rehearsed, like the words and actions in a play. Not real but a façade, like the grim old buildings with nothing behind them.

Hiding her concerns, Frances adopted a happy face. ‘So what's your baby's name?'

‘Charlotte Louise Charles. Her father's name is Charles. Not Charles Charles,' she said with a light laugh. ‘His name is Deacon Charles.'

‘Oh. That's nice.'

Frances didn't think it was nice at all. Charlotte was the female form of Charles and it just seemed too much of a coincidence that Miriam's husband's name was Deacon Charles. Not only was it her dead cousin's name, as well as that of his son, but she'd said that his first name was Deacon.

‘So where did you meet him, this Deacon Charles?'

‘Coleford. I got a job there in a shop and his family lived nearby.'

Frances dipped her head to her tea, sipping it as she thought it through. The only Deacon she knew on the other side of the Severn Bridge had been her favourite boy from the moment she'd moved there. Could Miriam really have married him? She wasn't sure, but she couldn't recall whether his surname had been Charles. She certainly didn't think so.

‘So where is he at present?'

‘Here. In Bristol. Or at least he will be shortly. That's why I'm here. I'm waiting for the war to end and him to come home. It won't be long now. I'm sure it won't.' Her eyes were oddly bright, her voice brisk.

‘I hope you're right,' returned Frances.

‘I reckon so,' said Mrs Kepple, who was now busily stirring a saucepan. Whatever was in the saucepan smelled extremely appetising.

Under the pretence of sipping tea, Frances studied Miriam's appearance. She was wearing the same old black coat she'd used to wear when she accompanied her mother to church. Did her mother know about the marriage and the baby? Somehow she doubted it. Somehow she couldn't believe that Miriam was married or had a baby. Curiosity scratched at her mind. Miriam. A baby. A husband. It was the existence of the baby that intrigued her most of all.

‘I've got a baby too. Her name's Daisy. Her father's American.'

‘Oh really,' said Miriam, all unsuspecting.

‘Do you think I could take a peep at your baby? I promise not to wake her.'

Miriam's expression was hesitant, as though frozen in a sudden blast of cold air. Frances presumed she would say no. She was proved wrong.

‘Yes. Of course you can. But we'll have to be quiet and Charlie will have to stay down here. I don't want him to wake her.'

‘Of course not.'

Mrs Kepple immediately offered to keep an eye on Charlie while the two young women headed for the stairs that were half-hidden behind a draped velvet curtain that Mrs Kepple had put there to keep the draught from coming down.

Frances recognised Miriam's room as being the same one she had occupied when she'd stayed here.

The baby was sound asleep, tucked up in a blanket on the bed. Her face was sickly pale, the lips almost waxen.

Sickening fear closed like a cold fist around Frances's heart. Miriam hovered behind her, close to her shoulder.

Miriam gave a little laugh. ‘She's always asleep. Never a murmur.'

Frances moved slowly, her legs unsteady. Suddenly it seemed such a long way to the bedroom door, but she had to make it. She had to raise the alarm. The baby was dead.

‘I'd better see how Charlie is before he eats any more of Mrs Kepple's jam tarts.' She kept her voice as steady as she could.

Seemingly oblivious to the true state of her baby, Miriam hung over the bundle, her fingers tucking the blanket more firmly around the ashen face. ‘I would let Charlie see my baby, but she needs her sleep.'

The stairs seemed to loom up to meet her as Frances stumbled swiftly down them. Mrs Kepple was waiting at the bottom, wiping the jam from Charlie's sticky fingers.

‘Mrs Kepple, have you ever seen Miriam's baby? Have you held her?'

Mrs Kepple frowned. ‘No, Miriam seems quite particular, keeps herself to herself.'

Frances took a deep breath and relayed her fears. ‘It's dead!'

Mrs Kepple looked dumbfounded. ‘You're sure?'

Frances couldn't stop shaking. ‘She always wanted a baby.'

Mrs Kepple touched her hand. ‘Let me go up and take a look. I'll insist this time. Tell you what: I've just made a cuppa so why don't you sit down with a brew and I'll take one up to her.'

Mrs Kepple sounded incredibly calm, though her hand shook a little.

Frances sat there trying not to feel nauseous. A dead baby! Lifeless!

Mrs Kepple came back down soon after with a tight smile on her face.

‘Don't worry, dear. It's not a real baby. It's a doll.' She shook her head. ‘Poor thing. Fancy playing pretend at her age.'

October 1945

While Charlie chased the last lingering butterflies and picked wild flowers, Stan Sweet knelt beside his wife's grave. He didn't come here so often nowadays, what with Ruby being so busy, little Daisy and his young grandson making demands on the time of all of them. But today he felt more elated than he'd felt for a long time.

Resting his clasped hands on his knee, almost as though he were praying, he began telling Sarah the great news.

‘So the war is finally over. The Japanese have surrendered. They've paid a terrible price for entering the war, but I'll leave the whys and the wherefores to the historians. The thing that causes my heart to soar is that Johnnie Smith has been released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He wrote to our Ruby and she's going down to meet him.'

Swallowing the lump of emotion rising in his throat, he raised his eyes, blinking away the tears as he regarded the branches of old trees creaking in the breeze. Like my joints, he thought to himself.

On clearing his throat, he put his thoughts into words, words he had not said to Ruby.

‘I did think for a while that she was going to marry one of her Polish pilots, but she didn't. Still, I'm glad she didn't. If she had, it would have meant her going with him when he went back to his own country. I don't think I would have been able to stand that. As it is …' He smiled, his chest seeming to swell with great joy as well as a lungful of fresh air. ‘We weren't sure Johnnie was still alive. During all that time he was imprisoned, we only received one card from him. I suspect he won't be in the best of health. Our Ruby knows that, but she's a different girl from the one she was when this war began. I know she'll cope, no matter how bad he is.'

Masses of people had gathered to watch the fifteen-thousand-ton ship
Chetril
berth at Southampton. She had sailed all the way from Rangoon, in India, through the Suez Canal into Cairo, Malta, Lisbon and finally Southampton.

A breathless excitement hung in the air, but also anticipation. Although the men coming home had received medical attention back in Rangoon, rumours were rife that their health had been badly affected by the long years of imprisonment and that starvation, brutality and disease had all taken their toll.

Ruby had dressed carefully in a navy blue coat and a wide-brimmed hat. The dress beneath her coat was blue with white polka dots. Her gloves were white, the same as her shoes and her handbag.

The excitement running through the open-ended shed where embarkation would take place was palpable. Flags and bunting hung from every available rafter and beam, fluttering brightly and lifting the gloom of the October day.

Ruby had the oddest feeling that she was made of glass, brittle and likely to break into a thousand pieces at any given moment. She hadn't been nearly so nervous when she'd caught the train at first light this morning; in fact, she'd been quite pragmatic and confident, rehearsing in her mind what she would say to him and what he would say to her: witty, sharply humorous things.

By the time the train had idled through Blandford Forum, the excitement that had begun in her stomach had travelled up to her throat. Her mouth had turned dry at the thought of seeing John again after so long. Would he have changed that much? Well, of course he will have, you silly goose! she told herself. He's been a prisoner of war since the fall of Singapore.

In her mind she'd pictured him as he used to be, the sardonic grin, the fair skin and the mockery in his eyes when going out of his way to annoy her. He'd enjoyed annoying her and in turn she'd enjoyed giving him as good as she got. They were so similar like that in wanting to knock sparks off each other.

In the meantime, she felt like a sardine, one of many in a very small can. People were heaving and jostling in all directions, straining against the metal barriers brought in to keep them beyond the place where the ship's hawsers, the heavy ropes used for mooring, would be thrown on to the quay.

A woman brushed against her, apologised and moved away dabbing at her eyes. ‘Oh, my,' she was saying to herself. ‘Oh, my.' She wore an expression of intense nervousness, biting her bottom lip or the thumb that was buried deep into her cotton handkerchief.

It wasn't until there was a little space between them that Ruby noticed that the woman was heavily pregnant. Of course, it was possible that she was here to meet her brother or even her father or other relative. But it could equally be a long-lost husband. Unlike the German camps, few letters had got out of the Japanese camps; neither had lists of internees drawn up by the International Red Cross or the Vatican, both of whom had done their best to find out who was dead and who was alive. Missing presumed dead, presumed prisoner, missing in action: the terminology was short and sharp. The years had gone by, three years since Singapore fell. Letters written but never replied to. What else could a woman do except presume that her man was dead, that she was free to remarry or live as best she could without him? Some had clung on to hope; some had cut their losses and found happiness elsewhere.

Ruby briefly thought of how the man would react once he saw the clear evidence that his wife had strayed. She found herself hoping that the woman still loved her husband, at least then there was a chance of reconciliation. She chose to believe it were so, otherwise the woman would not have been here to greet him, would she?