Unforgettable (7 page)

‘Well, it's not your fault, is it?' she said in a brittle voice. She had asked for the truth, and she had got it. ‘I'm sure you'll continue to do what you can for her, and whatever she needs, it'll be paid for, Doctor, don't worry about that. So I'd be obliged if you would come to see her regularly.'

‘Of course, if that's what you wish, though it's not strictly necessary.'

‘I think it is, if only for Mum's peace of mind, and mine too. She needs to know that people care.'

Apart from my father
, she might have added. The ironic thing was she knew he did care, in his own way. He just couldn't show it. And he still expected his wife to always be there and to cater for him. A chattel, no less. And now he expected Gracie to be the same. She hardened her heart against him, thankful that at least she had got her way over her mother's bed being brought downstairs to give her a bit of peace.

She left the doctor's rooms with the need to breathe in fresh air and think. She wandered down to the docks where her father worked, loading and unloading the massive containers that came from all parts of the world. That was the business part of the docks. At another were the huge ocean-going liners, taking the rich and famous to places Gracie had hardly heard about—the glamorous places—taking glamorous people to continue their lives of luxury and pleasure.

Gracie gave a sigh. There was no doubting that when she first went to London there had been such anticipation in her veins. Not that she was going to meet and fall in love with
somebody really famous, to be swept off her feet like some beautiful Hollywood film star and live happily ever after … she was sensible enough to know that life wasn't always like that. Not always. But it could be, for some, and why not her? She had dreams, the same as everybody else.

But now, she was back here where she belonged. It was just as if fate had decided that Gracie Brown had had enough of living in London, as free as a bird, dancing with handsome young men, and being independent in a way no nineteen-year-old girl had a right to be. And it was time she came home and settled down.

‘Look out, gel, or you're going to get hurt,' she heard a voice say irritably, and she stepped aside hurriedly as a man pushing a trolley-load of barrels on wooden rollers hurtled past. The smell of beer told her what was in the barrels, reminding her of her father.

She didn't know which part of the docks he worked at, but she didn't want to see him when her heart was full of all the doctor had told her. It was one shock on top of another. Not only did her mother have a growth, but she had a bad heart as well, and if one condition didn't kill her soon enough, the other one would.

She was hardly aware of where she was walking, and when she stumbled on the uneven cobbles she would have fallen if someone hadn't steadied her, and for a minute she thought she was going to be told off again.

‘Gawd Almighty, if you ain't a sight for sore eyes, Gracie Brown! I thought you'd gone up in the world since you'd gone up to London, and we were never going to see you again!'

As she looked up into the cheerful face of the young man with the whiff of the sea about him, she gave a small smile of recognition, and the hollow that was her stomach momentarily settled down again.

‘I could say the same about you, Davey Watkins. Last time I heard anything about you, you'd run off to sea.'

He laughed. ‘I didn't exactly run off, gel, though I did join the Navy to see the sea, as you might say, just like my old dad. And now I'm home on shore leave, and all the better for seeing you—and all grown up and all. So what happened to you? Got tired of the high life, did you?'

‘Hardly,' she said, and then her face crumpled.

She'd known Davey all her life, when he was a snotty-nosed schoolkid in short trousers with his socks always half-way down
his legs, and his hair an unruly ginger thatch. She acknowledged that he didn't look in the least like that now, and he was looking at her appraisingly too.

‘Blimey, Gracie, by the looks of things, it's tea and confession time, so let's go to a caff and you can tell me all about it.'

‘I don't know if I want to do any such thing,' she muttered.

She didn't know if she should, either. It was personal business. Family business. And you didn't go telling all and sundry your family business, except to old mates who could be trusted. But he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

In the steamy atmosphere of the dockside caff he went to the counter and ordered two cups of thick sweet tea. Once he had brought them to the table, he sat back with his arms folded. Real brawny sailor's arms they were now, Gracie noted, and not those of the weedy little kid she remembered.

‘Come on then, Gracie, tell Uncle Dave what it's all about. I don't get to hear too much gossip these days. Is it hatches, matches or dispatches?'

At his teasing words, she looked at him mutely, and to give her a moment's breathing space she took a gulp of tea that burned her mouth.

At least, she hoped he would think that was the reason for the sudden shine of tears in her eyes.

Noting it, he spoke casually. ‘So how's your old man these days? Still swilling the beer, I bet. Remember how we used to hang around outside the pubs of a night, hoping that when any of the old lushes came staggering out, they'd give us a few coppers for some pork scratchings?'

Gracie grinned. She had forgotten such things, but just for a moment she was caught up in a surge of nostalgia. They'd just been kids, the whole unruly gang of them, but they had hung together around the dockside pubs, and there was no fear, no danger, until they were sent off home with the landlord threatening to tell their dads. And them yelling back that their dads were drunker than any of them, and wouldn't remember a thing in the morning.

‘Is it something to do with your dad, Gracie?' Davey asked quietly, more perceptive than she thought. But obviously not perceptive enough.

‘It's Mum,' she said abruptly. ‘I've come home because she's going to die.'

‘You don't mean it!' Davey said, then added quickly, ‘but of course you do. Nobody would make up a thing like that. Blimey, Gracie, that's a real turn up. Poor old Queenie. So you've come home to look after her, have you?'

She nodded dumbly, wishing she hadn't said anything. Once you put it into words it sounded more real. Once you told other people and saw the shock in their eyes it made it even worse.

‘Don't start feeling sorry for me, Davey. Mum knows exactly what's happening, and we just have to get on with it as best we can.'

‘What about your dad? From what I remember I bet he's not behaving as well as you,' Davey said sceptically.

‘We all have to deal with it in our own way.'

‘In other words, he's still down at the boozer every night.'

Gracie bristled. It was all right for her to criticize her dad, but she didn't need anyone else doing it and making her feel worse.

‘What if he is? It's better than having him moping around the house, and he'll be just as
upset as I am when—when the time comes.'

She bit her lips hard, unable to say any more, wanting to get away from his sympathetic eyes.

‘Look, I really can't stay any longer, Davey.'

‘I understand,' he said at once. ‘You'll want to get back home, won't you?'

‘Not really.' She hesitated, perverse as the wind. ‘Actually, I could do with a bit of cheering up, so how about a walk—or do you have other things to do?'

She felt herself redden, but she had known him since he was in short trousers, and she wasn't trying to flirt with him. He could surely see that.

‘Nothing that won't wait,' he replied. ‘Where do you want to go?'

‘Oh, I don't know. We could take a look at the ocean liners and imagine we're going somewhere exotic and far away,' she said recklessly, willing her thoughts away from her mum's ordeal for the moment. ‘I bet you've seen plenty of exotic places in the Navy, haven't you?'

He laughed as they went outside the caff. ‘Hardly. Being in the Navy's no joy-ride when you're working in the bowels of the ship in the sweltering heat of the engine-room. You don't even see the sea until you're in port.'

‘It sounds horrible,' Gracie said. ‘Why do it
if you don't like it?'

‘I didn't say I don't like it. Just that it's not all it's cracked up to be, but it beats sticking around here. You got away as soon as you could, didn't you?'

‘And now I'm back.' Which said it all.

They walked in companionable silence until they reached the terminal where the ocean liners berthed. There was little activity there now, just one ship in port, awaiting its complement of wealthy passengers. They watched the comings and goings of the ship's company preparing for their next voyage.

‘Have you got a boyfriend?' Davey said casually.

She was tempted to spin the same yarn she had told her mother, about the saxophone player called Charlie Morrison. But what was the point? She kept her gaze fixed on the elegant ship as she spoke.

‘I did meet someone in London a little while ago, but I doubt that I'll ever meet him again. It's all water under the bridge now, anyway.'

‘Hell's bells, Gracie Brown, I never knew you to be so mournful—and I know you've got a lot to be mournful about right now, with your mum being ill and all—but at school everybody called you a right little ray of sunshine.'

‘You don't remember any such thing,' she said with a laugh and a catch in her throat, ‘and you're only saying it to make me feel better.'

‘Is it working?'

After a moment she said, almost in surprise: ‘Yes, it is.'

‘So come to a dance with me on Saturday night. You can make sure your old man stays home to keep your mum company. My shore leave ends next week, and it would be nice to have a few good memories to take back to sea.'

Gracie's face remained fixed all the while he was coaxing her, and all she could hear were those words:
come to a dance with me
. He couldn't know it, but she was instantly transported to the Palais where she had danced with Charlie and created memories that seemed to be etched in her brain, no matter how foolish.

‘What do you say?' Davey went on when she remained silent.

‘I'll think about it,' she said hurriedly. ‘Come round to our house sometime before then. I know Mum would like to see you.'

She wouldn't say anything more definite than that. She didn't want to go dancing with anyone but Charlie, but she knew how stupid that was. She was hardly going to spend the
rest of her life thinking about a chap she had only met so briefly, for God's sake. She wasn't living in the kind of dream-world that only existed in the movies, where miraculous things happened. She didn't believe in happy-ever-afters … the hell of it was, that deep down, she wanted to, so badly.

* * *

‘Would you mind if I went out on Saturday night, Mum?' she asked, saying it quickly, before she changed her mind.

‘Of course not, love!' Queenie's voice held genuine astonishment. ‘You're not a prisoner here.'

‘I'll make sure Dad stays home to keep you company,' she went on.

Her mother's laugh ended in a bout of coughing, and they had to wait until it stopped before she could go on.

‘I'm well used to that, Gracie, and now I've got my bed downstairs I'll be fine. I can watch the world go by of an evening, and tap on the window if I see any of the neighbours to ask them in for a chat. So where are you going?'

She lay back on her pillow, exhausted after such a long speech.

‘Remember Davey Watkins from Leeman
Street? He's in the Navy now, but he's home on leave and he asked me to go dancing. You don't mind, do you?'

It was ridiculous to feel like a little girl again, asking permission to go to the shops, but the light in her mother's eyes told her she was thinking differently.

‘I remember young Davey Watkins very well. Ginger hair and a cheeky smile. You could do a lot worse.'

‘It's only a dance, Mum!' Gracie said, suddenly cross. ‘Don't start matchmaking, and besides, I couldn't ever think of him in that way.'

‘I know you said you've got a young man, but he's in London—and a saxophone player, Gracie!' Her tone implied that it was a very dubious occupation.

‘And a
composer of songs
, Mum!' she said, compounding the fiction.

‘Oh well, I'm sure you know best,' Queenie said wearily.

The fight had gone out of her. At one time she would have probed every bit of Gracie's relationship with a saxophone player—or anybody else—even though there was nothing to find out! But now she made token enquiries, and was a semblance of the sparky woman of old. Illness did that to a person, Gracie thought savagely. It ravaged the body,
and the spirit too. It was heartbreaking. She turned away abruptly before her mother could see the prickle of tears in her eyes.

‘I'll make us some tea. Would you like a biscuit to dip in it, Mum?'

‘Perhaps just one. I'm not really hungry.'

They both knew it would either be left in the saucer or the dipping would turn the tea to biscuit soup.

She had composed herself by the time she took the tea into the front room where her mother was dozing on and off by now. Seeing Gracie, she made a determined effort to perk up, and managed to drink some of the tea once it had cooled down. Predictably, she didn't touch the biscuit.

‘Mum, I've been thinking. I don't want to sponge on Dad, and it may be months before you get better,' she went on delicately.

Queenie shook her head. ‘We both know that's not going to happen.'

Gracie ignored the remark. ‘I need to work, Mum, but I wouldn't leave you now. If I can use your old sewing-machine I could take in sewing alterations at home. I'd try not to let it disturb you too much.'