Authors: Ellie Dean
‘Of course. He and my grandfather were at prep school together,’ Suzy replied as she took her dirty dishes to the sink. ‘We have to get going, Fran, or we’ll be late.’
Peggy waved them off and sat at the table smoking a cigarette as she tried to imagine the shock Doris must have had at that little revelation. ‘Serves her right for not giving me a lift yesterday,’ she muttered.
Her moment of reflection was interrupted by the ring of the telephone, and with a cluck of annoyance she went into the hall to answer it. ‘Beach View Boarding House,’ she said automatically as she put the receiver to her ear.
‘It’s me, Stan, again. Sorry, Peg, but the little bird has flown and I can’t leave the station to go in search of her. Will you be going into the Town Hall today? Only I think that’s where she’ll head first if she’s looking for a billet.’
Peggy thought of her promise to Ron to rest, and knew that for once she should actually heed his advice, for she really didn’t feel the full ticket this morning. ‘I wasn’t really planning to, Stan,’ she said. ‘But I’ll ring the billeting office and let them know I can take her in. What’s her name, by the way?’
‘Ruby,’ he replied, ‘but I don’t know her other name. Sorry to be a bother, but she’s such a lost little thing, and I don’t like the thought of her wandering about all alone.’
‘You’re just an old softy, Stan,’ she teased. ‘Get back to your trains and I’ll ring round and see if I can’t track her down.’
Ruby had tidied away the blankets, turned off the fire and left the key to the lav on Stan’s desk after she’d washed and prepared for her first day in Cliffehaven. It was just after seven when she left the Nissen hut and walked down the hill, fascinated by the streak of blue at the bottom: she had never seen the sea before. Curious as she was, she resisted the urge to take a closer look and stopped at the billeting office, where there were already several people waiting, their few bits and pieces tied together with string and brown paper.
It was almost an hour later before she could register her name with the woman at the front desk and she was now sitting in the noisy waiting room. It seemed there were a lot of people in Cliffehaven looking for somewhere to stay, and she wondered how big the town was – and if indeed she would actually get a bed somewhere.
To while away the time until she was called, she’d taken a sheaf of pamphlets from a nearby table and was reading through them in search of a job. She didn’t fancy joining any of the armed services, the WTC or the Land Army, and certainly didn’t reckon much to the NAAFI, where she’d be on her feet all day working as a waitress. Plumbing, plastering and electrics were beyond her, but there were plenty of factory jobs going, and as they all offered a short course of training, she had little doubt she could get herself fixed up quite quickly.
She gathered the pamphlets together in a neat stack, pushed her hair back from her face and glanced around the room. There were still four people ahead of her, and many more coming through the doors to take the last few empty seats behind her. With so many in need of accommodation, Ruby suspected she would be very low down on the list of priority. Being a single girl with no dependants, she would probably end up in some hostel – not that the idea bothered her at all, for she was used to sharing, and at least that way she might make a few friends.
She clutched her handbag to her chest, aware of all the money she had hidden in there. She knew she should feel guilty at having stolen it from Ray, but as he’d no doubt come by it dishonestly in the first place, she had no qualms on his account. Once she had a job and a billet organised, she would go shopping for some warmer clothes and find a small gift for Stan, who’d been so kind to her last night. If he hadn’t rescued her, she’d have had to sleep on a doorstep or in an alleyway, and probably wouldn’t have survived the bitter cold.
‘Mrs Ruby Clark! Counter eight.’
Ruby grabbed her basket and hurried to the other side of the room where counters had been set up between tall hessian screens. The woman behind the desk was middle-aged and very neat in a lovely blue suit and silky blouse, her dark hair pinned into a thick bun at the back of her head.
Ruby sat down on the wooden chair as the other woman smiled distractedly and rummaged through the paperwork on her desk. ‘Mrs Clark?’ At Ruby’s nod, she picked up a pen. ‘Are you a resident of Cliffehaven?’
‘No. I come down from London yesterday.’
‘Do you have a job here?’
‘Not yet. I wanted to get somewhere to live first, but I’ll be looking for work the minute I leave here,’ she added hastily.
‘It’s all a bit irregular,’ said the woman as she glanced up from the paperwork. ‘Most people only come here because they already have work, and our priorities have to lie with the residents of Cliffehaven. Why did you come down from London? Do you have relatives here?’
‘I don’t know no one,’ she confessed, ‘but I had to get out of London ’cos me house was bombed and I didn’t have nowhere else to go.’ Ruby crossed her fingers in her lap and just hoped her lie sounded convincing enough.
The other woman regarded her steadily. ‘Cliffehaven is not the first place I would have chosen if I was living in London,’ she said. ‘There are other towns much nearer to the city that would have suited.’
‘I come ’ere for an ’oliday once when I were a kid,’ lied Ruby, who was beginning to get desperate. ‘Look, I can see you got a lot of local people wanting places to stay, but I really don’t want to go back to the Smoke. I don’t mind staying in a hostel or sharing a room with another girl. I just wanna settle in, find some work and do me bit like everyone else.’
The woman’s gaze was appraising. ‘How old are you, Mrs Clark?’
‘Eighteen.’ She saw the look of surprise in the woman’s eyes and handed over her identity card. ‘I might look like a kid,’ she said with a wry smile, ‘but believe me, eighteen’s quite old where I come from.’
The woman asked endless questions as she filled in a long form and Ruby wondered if they’d check up on her, find she was on the run for murdering Ray, and hand her over to the police. She would just have to take her chances, she decided, but the tension and the worry were starting to get to her, and if she didn’t watch it, she’d let something slip and then she’d be for it good and proper.
The other woman didn’t seem to notice Ruby’s discomfort as she looked through a large card index and finally pulled one out. ‘You’re in luck,’ she said. ‘Mr and Mrs Fraser have a single room free, and they’ve specifically asked for a young woman.’
She wrote down the address, clipped it to a rough map of the town and added the form Ruby would have to give to Mrs Fraser when she arrived at the house. ‘It’s a nice respectable house,’ she said, ‘and they’re a well-thought-of couple who’ve lived in Cliffehaven for years, so I have no worries about sending you there.’
The relief was like a huge weight being lifted from her shoulders, and Ruby’s smile was broad as she took the map and tucked it away in her handbag alongside her identity card and form of introduction. ‘Thanks ever so,’ she said as she pushed away from the desk.
‘I very much doubt you’ll have any problems, but if you do, come and see me,’ the woman replied with a warm smile.
‘Just one thing,’ said Ruby, ‘could you point me in the direction of the Labour Exchange?’
‘Go down the hill a bit further, and you’ll find it on the other side of the road opposite Plummer Roddis, the department store.’ The woman smiled. ‘Be prepared for a long wait, they’re always busy.’
Ruby left the office and took a deep breath of the clean, crisp air which was very different from the London smog she was used to. The rain of the previous night had passed on and the sky was quite blue this morning, the temperature much milder. Ruby looked down the hill to the glittering line of blue at the bottom and made a silent promise to go and look at the sea once she’d got herself a job.
The Labour Exchange was musty with the smell of too many people in a confined space, and Ruby had to queue to register her name and show her identity card. As every seat was taken, Ruby perched on a low windowsill at the back and prepared for a very long wait.
It was almost three hours later when she emerged from the Exchange, but she now had a job to go to first thing the next morning at the tool factory. The wages were much higher than she’d expected, so she decided to celebrate her successful day by buying a bag of chips, a Spam fritter and a bottle of pop from the chippy.
She perched on a stone bench and gazed at the sea as she ate from the cone of newspaper, marvelling at how big it was. It rolled and splashed on the shingle as the big white gulls hovered and screamed overhead, and she could smell the salt in the light wind that ruffled her hair.
Cliffehaven must have been lovely before they put all the ugly barriers and gun emplacements along the front, she thought. The cliffs at the far end were a gleaming white, and it looked as if there’d been a pier and a bandstand, and lots of very posh hotels. She munched on the fried food and drank the fizzy pop straight out of the bottle as she tried to imagine the holidaymakers coming in the summer. She’d seen postcards of seaside places, so she knew there would have been striped deckchairs and bright parasols, music playing on the bandstand, and flags fluttering all along the pier.
She gave a sigh of contentment, refusing to dwell on the black worries over her mother and what had happened to Ray. It was lovely sitting here in the sun by the seaside, so clean and clear and sparkling despite the bomb sites and the obvious damage to a lot of the buildings. Cliffehaven was a new start, an opportunity to make something of herself, and so far, it had proved to be everything she could have hoped for.
Licking the salt and vinegary grease from her fingers, she finished her lunch and threw the bottle and the newspaper into a nearby rubbish bin. After a careful study of the map, she hoisted up her things and began the long trek back up the hill towards the station. There was no sign of Stan, but she would thank him properly another day.
Nelson Street lay to the west of the huge factory estate that sprawled on the northern border of the town, and was lined with small terraced houses with front steps leading straight onto the pavement. It was similar to many of the East End terraces, but in much better condition, and Ruby felt quite at home as she wandered down it looking for ‘Mon Repos’.
It was almost at the end of the street. Ruby took a firmer hold of her basket as she knocked on the shiny black door. The windows were gleaming and the nets were as white as snow behind the heavily taped glass – something her mother would definitely have approved of and envied.
The door opened and a large, motherly-looking woman stood on the threshold in a flowery wrap-round pinafore, her greying hair covered by a matching scarf. ‘Yes, dear?’
‘The billeting office sent me, Mrs Fraser,’ Ruby replied, handing over the form she’d been given. ‘I ’ope you still got the room.’
Mrs Fraser glanced at the form before giving Ruby and her scant luggage the once-over. She eyed the swollen jaw and the sticking plaster on her forehead. ‘My goodness, you have been in the wars, haven’t you?’
‘There was a bombing raid in London just before I left.’ Ruby smiled. ‘It looks worse than it feels,’ she said lightly.
‘Well, you’d better come in,’ said Mrs Fraser, her smile warm and welcoming. ‘You look as if you need somewhere nice and comfy after such a horrid experience.’
Ruby followed the broad back and hips along the short, narrow corridor. Mrs Fraser showed her the spotless sitting room, with its carpet and pristine antimacassars on the backs of the comfortable chairs, and then the dining room, which had a large, highly polished table and four chairs taking up most of the room.
The kitchen was square, the lino polished to a gleam, the stone sink so clean it looked new. She looked through the snowy net curtains to the back garden, which was more of a walled yard. The paving was clean and swept and there were plants growing in pots by a small shed, and a large metal tank which had a tap on the side.
‘That’s the outside lav and the water butt,’ said Mrs Fraser. ‘Baths are once a week and cost thruppence, but you have to have your own soap and choose a night when my husband is out. The tub is hanging on the back of the lav door and must be used in here where any spills can go on the lino. When you’ve had your bath, you must pour the water away into the butt so it can be used to water the plants. If you want washing done, then that’ll be another thruppence.’
‘I can do me own washing,’ said Ruby hastily.
‘That’s as maybe,’ said Mrs Fraser, ‘but I still have to heat the water, and it all costs money, as I’m sure you are aware.’
She led the way back out of the kitchen, and Ruby followed her up the steep staircase with its runner of carpet and shining stair-rods, wondering what other extra charges the woman would add to the list.
‘This is your bedroom,’ said Mrs Fraser as she opened the door to reveal a single bed, a narrow wardrobe, a chair, small chest of drawers and a corner washbasin. A square of carpet lay on the polished floorboards and the pretty curtains matched the counterpane. Everything was spotlessly clean and smelled of lavender. It was a million miles from Ruby’s squalid tenement room.
‘It’s ever so nice, Mrs Fraser,’ said Ruby with a gasp of pleasure.
‘You will be responsible for keeping it clean and tidy. Bedding is to be changed on Monday mornings, food is not to be eaten up here, and of course I have a strict rule about male visitors. This is a respectable house, and I expect you to behave accordingly.’
Ruby flashed her wedding ring at her. ‘You’ll have no trouble from me, Mrs Fraser.’
The woman seemed to relax a little as she noted Ruby’s ring and earnest expression. ‘Hubby away at war, is he?’
Ruby nodded. ‘I come down to work at Simpson’s tool factory,’ she said blithely.
‘The shifts can be a bit erratic there, but I can always leave you a plate warming for when you get in, and they’ve got a good canteen, so you won’t need a packed lunch. If you’re doing nights, then you’ll have to fend for yourself. My hubby and I usually have breakfast at nine.’