A Distant Dream (23 page)

‘It’s just as well he can sleep through all the noise,’ said May. ‘I wish I could.’

‘Kids can only stay awake for so long when they are little, can’t they?’ said Betty. ‘And yes, it is a blessing.’

‘Anyway, so long as you’re all right, I must be on my way,’ said May, putting Joe down. ‘Be seeing you.’

‘Ta-ta,’ said Betty.

As May cycled home, she was conscious of a feeling of exhilaration that she had noticed before in the mornings since the bombing had started. The air felt sharper and everything seemed to register with more clarity, the little houses and the trees shedding their leaves for winter. Things were shabbier but brighter somehow. She supposed it might be because death was such a definite possibility now and everything seemed more precious.

Let’s hope that cat has come home, she thought. Tiddles always disappeared as soon as the siren sounded and didn’t reappear until all was quiet, which she guessed must be in a cat’s self-sufficient nature.

Oh well, another day and work to be done, she told herself as she passed the Pavilion, flowerless at this time of year but still managing to exude a welcome, the lightness of the colour standing out among the brick-built houses around.

May’s buoyant mood was enhanced by the appearance of Tiddles when she got home, but dispelled later that morning when sad news reached the Pavilion. One of their regular customers had been killed last night on his way to work on the night shift in a factory. A man in his forties with a family. The war really hit home for May now that someone she knew had been killed. She felt as vulnerable as she had during the very first air raid.

People were less chatty while they did their shopping today. Voices in the café were lowered. Everybody was aware of how close the war had suddenly come.

‘Could I have a cup of tea please?’ said the elderly man who came regularly for his newspaper; it was a lot thinner than pre-war editions because of the paper shortage.

‘Course you can,’ said May, glad that they had been able to keep the café open thanks to a special ration allowance for businesses catering for the public. ‘I’ll bring it over to you.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ he said. ‘Thank God for this place. You need company at a time like this.’

‘That’s why the pubs are packed of an evening I suppose,’ she said. ‘Despite the raids.’

‘Definitely,’ he agreed wholeheartedly. ‘People get fed up with being in the shelter every night, so some of them take a chance and go out for a pint.’

‘One of the pubs over Greenford way was demolished by a bomb the other night and people were killed,’ May mentioned.

‘Mm, I heard about that and I was shocked to the core,’ he said, shaking his head and pursing his lips as he breathed in. ‘But I take the view that if your name is on it, the bomb will get you wherever you are, so you might as well get some pleasure while you still can. I can’t abide the shelter. It just ain’t natural being six foot under when you’re not dead.’

‘No it isn’t,’ agreed May, pouring his tea while he went to find a table.

May remembered his words that night in the Anderson with her parents and Doug, sitting there in the cold, sour air waiting for the all-clear and hoping they would make it through until then. In one way the war offered advantages for courting couples in that there was plenty of scope for canoodling in the blackout, but there was less privacy if you couldn’t go out so were holed up with the older generation for hours on end.

May and her mother were both knitting pullovers for the troops, her father was reading the paper by candlelight and Doug was sitting next to May under a blanket doing nothing until a spider crawling up the corrugated iron made her squeal. He picked it up and put it outside through the hole at the end.

‘Funny how a harmless spider can still make you scream when there are bombs around,’ he remarked. ‘I would have thought one would have cancelled out the other.’

‘I would have thought so too, but it hasn’t worked for me,’ May told him.

‘We’re missing
ITMA
,’ complained Dick. ‘The highlight of the flippin’ week.’

‘Oh that’s a shame,’ said Flo. ‘I think I’ll chance it and go up to the house and make a cup of tea.’

‘I’ll do it,’ offered Doug, keen to escape from the claustrophobic atmosphere and mundane conversation. ‘May will come and give me a hand, won’t you?’

‘Course I will,’ she agreed.

‘Make sure you come back down as soon as you hear the first rumble of an enemy plane,’ warned Flo.

‘Will do, Mum,’ said May, making her way over to the opening at the back of the shelter to climb out.

As soon as they were in the garden and out of earshot, Doug took May in his arms and kissed her passionately.

‘Hey, steady on, Doug,’ she said. ‘We need to get that tea made before another Jerry plane comes over.’

‘Bugger the Jerry plane,’ he said. ‘I need a break, time alone with you. All this staying in with the family is driving me nuts. As much as I love them, we need to be on our own sometimes.’

‘What else can we do but stay home? The air raids seem to be on every night.’

‘We’ll go to the West End on Sunday before the blackout and see if we can get in to see
Gone With the Wind
.’ He knew how much she wanted to see that film. ‘It will be a break for us and take our minds of the bombing for a little while.’

‘Especially if we can get some seats in the back row,’ she said laughing.

‘May Stubbs, I do think you are trying to lead me astray,’ he said jokingly.

‘Back row or not, it will be lovely, Doug,’ she approved heartily. ‘I’ll look forward to that.’

‘Good, let’s get that tea made then.’

But May could hear the hated drone of an enemy plane, which started as not much more than a distant murmur and grew to a terrifying crescendo overhead. This was the worst part of the air raids, the first throb of an engine, then the horrifying increase in sound as the plane came nearer, turning her insides to water and sucking the air from her chest. ‘There’s a flaming plane coming,’ she said, hiding her terror.

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘I’ve got extra-sensitive hearing when it comes to bomber planes. Trust me, there is one on the way,’ she said.

By the time they were back in the shelter, the aircraft could be heard loud and clear.

‘What, no tea?’ said Dick.

‘Sorry, we’ll try again later,’ said May. ‘There wasn’t enough time to make it.’

‘They’ve been having a kiss and a cuddle, I expect,’ said Flo, chuckling.

‘Mum, that is
so
embarrassing,’ objected May.

‘There are worse things in life than embarrassment, my girl,’ said Flo wisely.

May took her point as they all waited with bated breath. The plane seemed to be directly overhead. There was a silence, then a loud crash before the plane moved away.

‘Phew,’ said May, puffing out her cheeks as she exhaled. ‘That was a close one.’

They all started to laugh shakily, light hearted with relief. It seemed nothing short of a miracle that they were all still alive when the aircraft had sounded so close as to be almost on the roof. Sometimes after such incidents they would hear the next day that the bomb had actually dropped several miles away.

‘Maybe we can have that tea now,’ said May as the skies seemed quieter.

‘Get on and make it this time, and less of your courting,’ said her mother.

‘All right, Mum, don’t go on about it,’ said May, giggling. She always felt shaky and emotional after a near miss, and prone to inappropriate laughter.

There were masses of people in the West End on Sunday afternoon and the queue for
Gone With the Wind
encircled the cinema in Leicester Square. There was bomb damage all around; parts of buildings reduced to rubble, dust floating in the air and plenty of official danger signs. But if this dampened the mood of the cinema-goers they certainly didn’t show it. They seemed to take the view that if they waited long enough, maybe they would get in to see the most talked-about film of the year, and they were determined to enjoy it, chatting to people around.

May and Doug waited for two hours. When they finally sank into the plush seats, they revelled in the sheer escapism that Hollywood created so well. They didn’t manage the back row but held hands throughout the performance, the usual pall of cigarette smoke hanging over the auditorium. An air-raid warning flashed on to the screen, but only a few people left the building. The majority, including May and Doug, preferred to take their chances and stay. They hadn’t queued for so long to miss the film.

‘I feel almost human again,’ May said to Doug as they emerged from the cinema and walked towards the station arm in arm. ‘Being out doing something nice has really cheered me up. I can put up with the shelter tonight having had such a lovely treat.’

‘Yes, I thought it might cheer us up.’

‘Thanks for suggesting it.’

‘A pleasure,’ he said graciously. ‘I’m going to suggest something else now.’

‘Another outing?’

‘More serious than that.’

‘Another one of your surprises, eh?’ she said. ‘Out with it. Don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘I think we should get married right away,’ he declared. ‘Or as soon as possible.’

‘Well it’s a lovely idea, but nothing has been organised,’ she said, managing to stay realistic even though she was thrilled by the suggestion. ‘Weddings take time to arrange.’

‘The last thing I want to do is deprive you of your big day with a white dress and all the trimmings,’ he said. ‘But the way things are with the war, we have to live for the moment, and it’s more important to me to be your husband than to have a great big wedding reception, which wouldn’t be possible anyway now because of the shortages. We need to be together in these dangerous times, May, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes, of course, but it isn’t quite as easy as that,’ she said. ‘For one thing, where would we live?’

‘On the boat,’ he suggested. ‘Or if you feel that’s too dangerous, with Jerry making a beeline for the Thames and there being no underground shelter immediately accessible, maybe we could stay at your place temporarily, just until we find somewhere of our own. I sleep in the spare room several nights a week anyway, and I would insist on paying your parents rent of course, that would be only right and proper.’

‘So when did you have in mind for this wedding?’ she enquired.

‘Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough for me, but obviously we have to be realistic.’

‘Mmm.’

He ushered her into the crowded station and dug into his pocket for their return tickets. ‘This is something we both have to want,’ he said. ‘If you would rather wait until a big do can be arranged, don’t be afraid to say.’

‘Naturally I would like some of the trimmings,’ she said. ‘The same as any girl would.’

‘I understand,’ he said.

She looked at him, seeing the love in his eyes and feeling torn. The ominous wail of the siren sent crowds hurrying into the station as May and Doug headed for the platform.

As the train rumbled noisily into the station, May turned to him. ‘Let’s do it, Doug,’ she said. ‘Provided Mum and Dad are happy, I’m all for it.’

His beaming smile was all she needed to convince her that she had made the right decision.

‘Next week?’ said Betty in astonishment a few days later. ‘You’re getting married next week?’

‘That’s right,’ confirmed May. She had received her parents’ blessing and Doug had got a special licence.

‘Blimey,’ said Betty. ‘Are you up the spout, then?’

‘No I’m not,’ May said, raising her eyes in disapproval. ‘Trust you to come out with something like that.’

‘It’s usually the reason weddings happen suddenly.’

‘Not in this case,’ said May emphatically. ‘Anyway, lots of people are getting married quickly because of the war.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Betty conceded.

‘It will be a very small do as it’s such short notice, and it will have to be registry office because there isn’t time to get a church.’

‘Not too small for me to be invited, I hope,’ said Betty. ‘My non-existent social life could do with a boost.’

‘Of course you’re invited,’ May assured her. ‘You and Joe and Dot and my friend Connie from Ashburn, and just close relatives apart from that. Doug’s parents will come if they can get there with the bombing and the train service being so badly disrupted. We’re having the reception at the Leopold Hotel and Doug and I will stay there for our first night,’ she said. ‘We’re going to close the Pavilion for the afternoon.’

‘First night in a hotel, eh?’ said Betty. ‘Very romantic.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

‘You’ll have to let me know what you’d like for a wedding present,’ said Betty.

‘I’ll think about that,’ said May excitedly. It wasn’t going to be the wedding of her dreams, but she was very thrilled indeed at the prospect of becoming Mrs Doug Sands.

It was the night before the wedding and May had a pleasant gathering of butterflies in her stomach. Because it was bad luck for the bride to see the groom the night before the nuptials, Doug was staying on the boat tonight but meeting her father in a pub in Ealing for a few drinks as a kind of stag night. The few younger men of his acquaintance were away in the services so Dick was stepping into the breach to keep up with tradition.

May and her mother were preparing to look their best for the big day. Both had washed their hair and taken it in turns to lie on the floor with their head by the fire to dry it. Now they both had their hair wound into curlers.

‘I’m off to meet Doug now,’ announced Dick, appearing in his outdoor clothes. ‘Make sure you both go down the shelter if you hear the siren.’

‘And you make sure that you go to the nearest shelter or into the pub cellar.’

‘Will do.’

May was really hoping there wouldn’t be an air raid tonight. She wanted to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow. There had been an occasional bomb-free night recently, so with a bit of luck it would be quiet.

Her hopes were dashed when Moaning Minnie, as some people referred to the siren, went off while she and Flo were listening to
Band Wagon
on the wireless.