A Distant Dream (29 page)

‘So you’re single again then,’ remarked Connie casually.

May nodded. ‘Sadly, yes. How about you in the love-life department?’ she asked.

‘I met a really nice chap at a dance but he’s a soldier and away at the war,’ she said. ‘I write to him regularly and we have a sort of understanding, but he isn’t around so I’m free if you’d like company at any time. We could go to the pictures one night if you fancy it. Nearer to home than the West End might be better. Ealing Broadway is only a few stops on the train for me.’

‘I’d like that,’ said May.

No one would ever replace Betty, but having some female company of her own age did help to ease the aching loneliness of life without her long-term friend.

It was generally thought that children were surprisingly resilient, and May saw proof of this when Joe’s bewildered cries for his mother began to abate quite soon. He was, of course, very young, with a short memory span, which meant he might have very little recollection of Betty as he grew up. So once things had settled down after the death and she felt the time was right, May made a conscious effort to keep his mother’s memory alive in a cheerful way by mentioning her in happy circumstances every now and again.

‘Mummy would be so
proud
of you,’ she would say if he did some praiseworthy little thing like standing still while she put his coat on, or not yelling when she washed his hair as she sometimes did to help his grandmother.

‘Would she?’

‘Oh yes; she’d want to know that her boy is being good,’ she would assure him.

Such was the dialogue between them one blustery Wednesday afternoon in March when they were at the playground and he’d been down the slide for the first time sitting on her lap.

‘I’ve broken all the playground rules by going on the slide with you, since I’m well over the age limit,’ she told him chattily. ‘But wasn’t it fun, and your mummy would think you were such a brave boy.’

‘Again,’ was his beaming response.

She looked around furtively.

‘I’ll turn a blind eye,’ said a young woman pushing a child on a swing.

‘Thanks a lot,’ said May, running after Joe, who was tearing towards the slide.

‘Wheee,’ she cried as they slid down together, both laughing with exhilaration at the bottom.

‘Again,’ said Joe.

‘You’ll have me at this all afternoon, you little perisher,’ May said, grinning, completely engrossed in him. ‘Once more, then, and it really will be the last one, I mean it.’

It was only then that she realised that they were not alone. She saw a pair of shiny black boots, and as her gaze moved upwards it rested on a tanned and smiling soldier.

‘You always did like the slide,’ he said. ‘You’ve been down it a time or two on my lap.’

‘George,’ she gasped, welling up with emotion. ‘How did you get here?’

‘In the usual way, I walked in through the gates.’ He threw his arms around her. ‘Oh it’s so good to see you, May.’

‘Likewise.’ She turned to see Joe about to climb the slide steps on his own. ‘Oh my Lord. Joe, no, come back.’ She tore after him. ‘Joe, Daddy is home. Come and see Daddy.’

But the child had only one thing on his mind, so she had to go down the slide with him again.

‘Hello, Joe,’ said George thickly when they got to the bottom, holding his arms out to his son.

Joe fixed him with a long, studious stare, then opened his mouth and emitted a scream of epic proportions, clinging on to May as though his life depended on it.

‘He wasn’t much more than a baby when you went away,’ May reminded George when the child had finally calmed down and Flo had taken him into the Pavilion so that May and George could have a chat on their own, sitting on a bench near the swings. ‘Children of that age have short memories, so it’s only natural he wouldn’t remember you.’

‘I know,’ sighed George. ‘But I’ve been longing to see him and I wasn’t planning on making him yell his head off.’ He paused and she could see that he was desperately disappointed. ‘I was so proud to see him, May. He’s a proper little boy now.’

‘Yes,’ she said, wanting to howl with a mixture of joy at seeing George and sadness at Joe’s reaction to him. ‘He’s a proper little boy all right and a very fine one too. He’ll be three tomorrow.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

‘How long are you home for?’

‘Ten days’ compassionate leave. I should have been back for the funeral, but that’s the war for you. By the time the news reached me, then the leave was arranged and they got me on to a boat, the whole thing was over and done with.’

‘Thing aren’t straightforward in wartime,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure you were there in spirit.’

‘Of course,’ he said in a serious tone. ‘Poor Betty. It’s such a shock and so dreadfully sad. It seems really odd to think that she isn’t here any more. She was so young and had always been around, a part of our lives.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘It must have hit you hard, May, having been best friends all your life.’

‘Yes, it has been tough.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Seeing you with Joe in the playground where we spent so much of our childhood was so . . . so comforting,’ he said. ‘Mum said you are an absolute godsend to her, so thanks for that. I’ve been worried sick about him, wondering who would look after him. But then I saw Mum and I couldn’t believe the change in her.’

‘So you can go back with an easy mind, though you’ve only just got here so you won’t want to think about going back.’

‘You’re right about that.’

There was a silence, and tension drew tight. They each knew what was on the other’s mind.

‘Mum said you were with Betty when it . . . er, happened,’ George said at last.

‘That’s right.’

‘Did she suffer?’

May had a vivid flashback to that terrible night, the blood and the grimness of Betty’s death and the events preceding it. ‘Not for very long,’ she said, managing to keep her voice steady. ‘It was all over quite quickly.’

‘Hit by debris, Mum said.’

‘That’s right.’ He would never hear from her of what else had ailed Betty at the time of her passing. ‘It hit her head.’ She swallowed hard. ‘A very deep wound.’

He reached across and put his hand on hers in a gesture of comfort. Neither of them spoke; there was no need.

Joe flatly refused to go home with his father on his own, so May went with them, the boy clutching her hand.

‘He’ll come round,’ she said to George encouragingly. ‘When he’s had time to get used to having you home.’

‘By that time I’ll be due to go back.’

‘Don’t talk daft,’ she said. ‘You’re George Bailey. You could persuade Hitler himself to surrender if you could get near enough to him. I’m sure you can make your charm work on a three-year-old boy.’

‘If I don’t, it won’t be for want of trying.’

They walked on in silence for a while, then May said, ‘What’s it like being at the war?’

‘Hot,’ he replied.

‘I know that, but is it terrible, the fighting I mean?’

‘We manage,’ he said, and moved on swiftly. He didn’t want to think about the fierce, inescapable sandstorm that had howled around them for days in the desert and penetrated the nose, mouth, eyes and ears of men on both sides in the battle against the Italians for Tobruk. He didn’t want to remember the noise of the guns or the deafening explosions or the dead soldiers on the barbed wire and strewn around on the ground. ‘So what’s been happening around here, apart from the air raids and the rationing and people getting killed long before their time?’

She realised that he was telling her he wasn’t going to talk about his life as a soldier and would rather she didn’t ask, so she brought him up to date with local news.

As they approached the Bailey home, Joe let go of May’s hand and tore towards the house. ‘Gran!’ he shrieked, banging on the door with his fists because he couldn’t reach the knocker. ‘There’s a soldier out here. Come quick.’

May couldn’t help but laugh, and fortunately George saw the funny side too.

‘You’d better start working your charm on him right away, I think,’ she advised.

‘It does look that way,’ he agreed.

George had been watching May and Joe in the playground for a while before he’d made his presence known; just feasting his eyes on the pleasurable sight of a young woman and a small boy totally engrossed in each other, comfortable and happy together, all the more poignant as the boy had just lost his mother. Thank God for May, who seemed to get the balance of fun and authority just right. She played with him, but the boy knew he could only go so far. You could see the bond between them and it touched his heart. Seeing May coming down the slide with her blond hair flying had made him smile and swept away the years to those golden carefree days now gone for ever.

After the things he’d seen this last year or so, he knew there was no going back to more innocent times. The world had changed. Even here at home the evidence of brutality was all around in shattered buildings and bomb craters. But one thing that shone through the violence and hatred of war was human spirit. He’d experienced it first hand in his comrades in battle and he could see it here at home. People carried on against all the odds.

Catering for a children’s party in wartime required a great deal of imagination. But between them Dot Bailey and May managed to provide a spread of sorts for Joe’s third birthday that included low-on-points pilchard sandwiches, banana spread made from parsnips and banana essence and a birthday sponge cake produced without eggs and iced with some precious melted chocolate mixed with dried milk.

‘Give little kids other little kids to play with and a few toys to fight over and they’re happy whatever you give them to eat,’ observed May after tea, when the children, all little boys, started rushing around, play-fighting boisterously and filling the house with more noise than a schoolyard at playtime.

‘That’s true,’ agreed Dot. ‘But they’re getting a bit too wild now. We’ll have to organise a game to calm them down before somebody gets hurt.’

‘Right, you lot,’ said George commandingly, stepping into the centre of the room. ‘Stop.’

No one took any notice.

‘Shut up. Now,’ he said, increasing the volume to a shout.

Silence fell.

‘Good. That’s better,’ he approved. ‘Now, hands up all those who would like to play a game.’

A forest of hands went up.

‘Right, that’s the stuff. We’ll have musical chairs,’ he said with his sister’s wind-up gramophone in mind. ‘Nobody move until we’ve put the chairs out.’

They all stood reverently still while the adults got the game organised. Then a little voice said proudly and with a proprietorial air, ‘That’s my dad.’

Standing back while May and George organised the game, Dot was treasuring the joy of having her son home and being involved in Joe’s party. Not so long ago she’d thought she would never feel part of anything again, or enjoy life even to a small degree. But here she was in the midst of it and happy.

To this day she didn’t know how she had done it. It had just sort of happened. When Betty died, she’d felt duty-bound to look after Joe but had been terrified at the idea to the point of feeling physically incapable. Even after she’d taken on the job it had still seemed beyond her until she had realised that she was actually doing it, despite her lack of confidence. Maybe she didn’t get it right all the time, and sometimes she did still feel very nervous, but Joe seemed to thrive and her involvement had turned out to be her release from the prison she’d been in since her husband’s murder.

She had become a useful member of the human race again and it felt good. Of course she did have a great deal of outside help from May, and she really valued that. Together they would bring up Joe while he needed them.

‘Have we got anything we can give the winner as a prize, Mum?’ George was saying.

‘Yes, I’ve got a few jelly babies,’ she replied.

There were shrieks of delight, but the real highlight of the party came a bit later when George took all the boys into the street with an old football of his. They all loved this.

‘I think George has probably won Joe over now, don’t you?’ Dot said to May.

‘Yeah, it certainly looks like it.’

‘It’s a shame he has to disappear again so soon.’

‘It certainly is,’ said May, feeling a shadow fall over the afternoon.

‘It will be harder for him to bond with the boy as Joe gets older if he’s away for long periods,’ said Dot.

‘We’ll just have to hope and pray that this war comes to an end before too long,’ said May.

But they both knew these were just empty words, because there was no sign of an end to the hostilities.

Both May and Dot were hoping that there wouldn’t be an air raid during George’s leave, because it would only enhance his worries about going back and leaving them if he actually experienced a raid first hand. But on the penultimate night of his leave the siren wailed its miserable message and Dot went through the usual procedure of collecting gas masks, coats, blankets, pillows and ration books, heading off into the Anderson and making up a bed for Joe.

‘You’re very organised and matter-of-fact about it all, Mum,’ George remarked as they settled down in the candlelight.

‘Not really,’ said Dot. ‘But we are used to the raids now, so it’s an automatic procedure.’

‘Bangs in a minute,’ said Joe. ‘Will there be shrapnel, Gran? The big boys like that.’

‘I expect so, darlin’,’ said Dot. ‘Let’s get you settled down, then you can have a story.’

‘I want my daddy to read the story,’ said the boy.

‘All right, son,’ agreed George, picking up the book of fairy tales. ‘Which one do you want?’

‘Riding Hood,’ said Joe, settling down under the blanket.

‘Riding Hood it is then,’ said George.

The planes came over with all the usual heart-stopping thumps and explosions. Dot assured her grandson that nothing bad was going to happen to them and the boy accepted it without question. George thought his mother was probably terrified, but there was no outward sign of this; just a grim kind of acceptance. George had seen bravery on the battlefield but he knew he was witnessing courage here tonight. Mum didn’t even have Sheila as support now, so when he wasn’t here it was just her and a small child in the shelter. It was a very upsetting thought.