There'll Be Blue Skies (27 page)

The morning was spent cleaning the house while Ron kept the boys occupied in the vegetable garden. Sally realised she wasn’t the only one who needed to be busy so she didn’t have time to dwell on what might be happening out in the Channel, for Peggy, Cissy and Anne set to work cleaning as if their lives depended upon it.

It was her day off from the factory, and come mid-afternoon the housework was done.

‘Come on, Anne,’ Sally said. ‘We need to do the last fitting so I can finish your dress in time.’

‘I don’t feel very much like dressing up,’ Anne replied, her brown eyes huge in her wan face. ‘Martin’s probably out there now giving air-cover to the boats. How can I possibly even think about dresses and weddings and—?’

‘Because he’ll be coming home expecting you to marry him in three weeks’ time,’ said Sally firmly. ‘And you can’t do that in a dress that ain’t – that
hasn’t
been finished.’

‘But what if—?’

‘That’s quite enough of that,’ she said sternly, realising she was beginning to sound like Peggy. ‘We all got to get on with things, Anne. It’s the only way we’re going to win this bloody war.’ She took Anne’s arm and firmly steered her into the dining room and shut the door.

Anne stood and gazed out of the window. ‘You’re right of course,’ she murmured. ‘I’d be letting Martin down if I give in to such defeatist thoughts.’

Sally opened the trunk she now used to store her needlework away from the dust, and pulled out the dress, which she’d covered in a muslin sheet. There had been much discussion over what Anne should wear for her wedding, for even a day-dress would now mean handing over at least seven clothing coupons. Wedding dresses were as rare as hen’s teeth and would have cost a fortune if one could have been found, so most girls opted for something borrowed, or the uniform of the service in which they served.

Then Jim had come home with the parachute silk a few weeks ago. He’d refused to say where he’d got it, as usual, and as there had been no enemy airmen parachuting into the town, and the stores at the airfield were under lock and key, it was thought wiser not to ask any more questions.

She felt the slithery weight of it on her arm as she drew away the muslin sheet, and knew it was the finest thing she’d ever made. ‘Close the curtains, Anne,’ she said softly. ‘You don’t want half the street seeing you in your Liberty bodice and knickers.’

The room was plunged into darkness, and Anne switched on the light before stripping to her underwear. She slipped her feet into the white high-heeled sandals her Aunt Doris had lent her, and held out her arms so Sally could carefully slide on the dress. ‘It’s cold,’ she muttered with a shiver.

‘Silk is always cold at first,’ said Sally through a mouthful of pins. ‘It’ll soon warm up.’

The tiny buttons would fasten the dress from neck to hip, and it was important she got it just right, otherwise it would hang awkwardly. She smoothed the material over Anne’s hips and adjusted it at the shoulders and neck. They had all lost weight over the past months, due to shortages, stiff rationing and the sheer energy used in getting through each day, so it wasn’t surprising she had to take it in at the waist again.

‘I couldn’t get the right buttons,’ she mumbled through the pins, ‘but at least I found a dozen all the same size, if not the same colour.’ She rooted in the box on her sewing table, and took out a handful. ‘As you can see, I’ve started to cover each one with the same silk as the dress, so no-one will ever know.’

‘You are clever, Sally. I would never have the patience, or the skill, to do something like this.’

‘And I couldn’t be in a classroom all day with those kids,’ she muttered, as she pinned the back where she wanted the buttons and buttonholes to be. ‘I’d end up throttling them.’

‘I doubt it,’ murmured Anne. ‘You’ve endless patience with Ernie.’

‘He’s me –
my
brother,’ she said. She finished pinning the back of the dress and stood behind Anne as they admired the effect in the cheval mirror that Peggy had brought down from one of the bedrooms.

Anne’s dark hair and eyes were a perfect foil for the shimmering silk. The dress had a scooped neckline and cap sleeves, and fell from the close-fitting bodice into a waterfall of silk that would float around her ankles when she walked. To emphasise her tiny waist, Sally had stitched in a false belt at the front, which she’d decorated with scraps of lace, seed pearls and sequins to match the embellishment on the sleeves.

Sally gazed at her creation and wondered if she’d ever have the chance to wear such a beautiful dress – to look so regal, to feel so assured of being loved by the man she adored. Then she caught sight of her own reflection and realised she could never look as elegant or beautiful as Anne – and that although she was in love with John, that was no guarantee he loved her enough to ask her to marry him. She looked away from their reflections. She wasn’t quite seventeen anyway, so she was being silly to dream of such things.

Anne seemed to read her thoughts. ‘It’ll be your turn one day,’ she murmured.

Sally gave a great sigh and tried to extinguish the hope that burnt so brightly. With so many uncertainties at the moment, it wasn’t wise to try and see into the future. ‘You look ever so lovely,’ she said instead. ‘Like a princess.’

Anne grinned with delight. ‘I feel like a queen,’ she replied, swirling the skirt, and almost tripping over the hem.

‘Stand still before you tear the silk,’ said Sally hastily. ‘I need to pin the hem and, once that’s done, I can get on and finish it.’

The boys were just settling down to listen to
Children’s Hour
when the doorbell rang. As Sally and Anne were doing their best to put together an evening meal from Spam, whiskery potatoes and dried eggs, Peggy went to see who it was.

Sally could hear the voices in the hall, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. At least it didn’t sound like the telegraph boy with a dreaded brown envelope.

Peggy returned to the kitchen with a hesitant smile. ‘That was Miss Ormiston from the Billeting Office,’ she said. ‘It looks like we’ve got another couple of waifs and strays to look after, though how on earth we can make that food stretch to so many, I don’t know.’

Sally turned to greet the new arrivals, gasped in amazed horror and forgot her determination to speak nicely. ‘Pearl, Edie?’ She took in the dirty clothes, the tear-streaked faces and the two bulging, filthy pillowcases they carried. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ she breathed. ‘What ’appened to you?’

Pearl swept back her tangled hair with a dirty hand. ‘The ’ouse went up while we was at work last night,’ she said, stifling her tears. ‘The silly old bugger ’ad a big box of grenades he’d kept after the last war, ’idden in the cupboard by the chimney. The fireman said they musta deteriorated and got over’eated and blew up. The poor old dears never stood a blinking chance.’

Edie nodded dumbly. She wasn’t given to talking much at the best of times, but now she seemed too traumatised to say anything.

Pearl pointed at the pillowcases. ‘This is all we could salvage,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘The clean-up crew said it were too dangerous to look for anything else.’

Sally put her arms round both of them, sat them down and poured cups of tea that resembled dishwater. The leaves had already been used several times, but at least it was hot, and there was milk to help it go down.

Peggy returned to washing lettuce under the tap. ‘You can both have the room next to Sally’s,’ she said. ‘There’s only a double bed in there, so I hope you don’t mind sharing.’

‘That’s blindin’ Mrs Reilly,’ said Pearl, blowing on the tea. ‘I could sleep anywhere tonight, I’m that tired.’

‘Did you manage to salvage your ration books?’

They shook their heads. ‘Sorry, Mrs Reilly, but they went up with the ’ouse. Mrs Whatsit from the Billeting place gave us some temporary cards to be going on with though.’ Pearl reached into her coat pocket and pulled them out. ‘It could be a while before we get the proper ones.’

Once the tea had been drunk, Sally showed them upstairs and helped to make the bed, find towels and teach them how to use the gas boiler in the bathroom without losing their eyebrows.

Pearl was distraught as she tipped the contents of the two pillowcases on to the floor. ‘All our lovely things are gorn,’ she wailed, ‘and look what’s ’appened to me best dress, and Edie’s new jacket.’

Sally eyed the bedraggled bits of cotton and gathered everything up. ‘A bit of a wash and they’ll all come up lovely,’ she soothed. ‘You’ll feel better once you’ve had a bath as well. I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen when you’ve finished.’

‘I ’ope Mrs Reilly don’t mind us turning up like this,’ said Pearl.

‘She’s glad to have you, I’m sure,’ she said softly, ‘but she’s got things on her mind at the moment, so she’s not quite herself.’

Pearl and Edie looked at her questioningly, but it was Pearl who spoke. ‘Mr Reilly’s brother’s a fisherman, ain’t ’e? Have they gone over – you know – over there? Cos my Billy’s dad’s gone, and ’is mum don’t know what to do with ’erself, so I can guess what she’s going through.’

‘I think John has as well,’ she admitted, ‘and with Martin in the RAF, none of us are thinking straight at the moment.’

‘Oh, Gawd, Sal. Where will it all end?’ Pearl burst into tears again.

Sally rushed to comfort her. ‘We gotta keep strong, Pearl,’ she murmured, close to tears herself. ‘We just gotta for their sakes.’

An hour later, everyone had finished tea and cleared away. The boys had been put to bed and cigarettes had been lit as they sipped weak tea and sat by the wireless, fearfully waiting to hear the news.

It was the twenty-sixth of May, and the armada of little boats had been escorted by naval gunships through the minefields of the Channel to Dunkirk and the beaches of northern France. As the gunships gave covering fire, the RAF flew above those little ships as they headed for the shallow water and the hundreds of thousands of men stranded on the beaches. There was order amid the mayhem as those men awaited their turn to wade through the water, past fallen comrades, to reach their rescuers.

As Sally listened, she could only pray that they would all come home safely. But none of them realised they would have to wait another nine agonising days before there was any news of their loved ones.

Chapter Eleven

The following days dragged by, their fears tormenting them as they went about their daily lives and pretended nothing had changed. There had been no word of their men, and the news that several ships had been sunk and hundreds had been killed didn’t make the waiting any easier.

Sally found she couldn’t concentrate on anything, and earned a rare reprimand from Mr Goldman over allowing some careless sewing to get passed, which sent her back to her machine in tears. Tears that were duly noted by her friends and enemies alike, and she’d had to dredge up every ounce of will to make light of them and reinforce her position.

Then the longed-for telephone call had come from the Lifeboat Station. The local boats had returned to the rendezvous point and were now making their way home.

Pearl told her to look out for Billy’s father’s boat, the
Pelican
, and Edie wished her luck before they went off to work. Sally had taken the day off, promising Mr Goldman to work a double shift the following day to make up for it. It was a sunny June day and she’d washed and ironed her sprigged cotton frock with the white Peter Pan collar and cap sleeves, taking a cardigan to keep off the chill wind that still blew in from the sea. With brightly coloured combs in her hair and a dash of lipstick, she felt quite pretty, and hoped John thought so too.

Mrs Finch remained at the house, promising to put the kettle on the minute she heard the key in the door. She had no wish to intrude on what was clearly a private reunion.

It was quite a family outing, with Harvey pulling eagerly on his leash as Peggy and Ron led the way to the seafront. Anne and Cissy followed with the boys, whilst Sally pushed Ernie in his flag-festooned wheelchair. The boys were also armed with flags and kept running on ahead, which made Harvey pull even harder on the lead. Ron had to yell at them to come back and walk properly as Harvey was in danger of strangling himself.

There was already a crowd waiting impatiently by the Lifeboat Station, and the WRVS had set up a canteen, doling out cups of tea and rather stale biscuits for a farthing. Armed with tea, biscuits and cigarettes, the adults perched on the low wall that divided the promenade from the road, and settled down to wait. The boys wheeled Ernie along the strip of promenade to inspect the gun emplacements and annoy the soldiers with their endless questions, but they returned some time later with sticks of chewing gum, which they shared with everyone except Ron, who complained it got stuck in his false teeth.

Almost two hours later a great cheer went up and they were on their feet, craning to catch sight of the first boat. It was the
Minerva
and, with a sigh of disappointment, they jealously watched the joyful reunion of the
Minerva
’s crew with their families.

Next to come in was a large motorboat, swiftly followed by the pleasure steamer that, in peacetime, had taken tourists on trips around the bay. And then the
Seagull
came round the headland, and Peggy pushed her way through the melee to stand on the shingle at the water’s edge.