Authors: Ellie Dean
‘Margaret! Do pull yourself together and stop lounging about like that.’
Peggy almost jumped out of her skin. She opened her eyes and regarded her elder sister, Doris, with little affection. Doris was bossy and overbearing, a terrible snob and the laziest person she knew. The fact that she’d clearly just come from the hairdresser’s was simply another irritation. ‘I’ve earned a few minutes’ peace,’ Peggy replied flatly.
‘I hardly think that making a few sandwiches can be classed as heavy labour,’ Doris snapped, her cold gaze sweeping over the mess on the table.
Peggy refused to rise to the bait as she ground out her cigarette in the tin ashtray and slowly began to clear things away. She regarded Doris from head to foot, noting the fresh hairdo under the silk scarf, the immaculate make-up and suspiciously new-looking gabardine raincoat. ‘Did you want something, Doris? Only I have to finish here and get home.’
‘I just called in to ensure that everyone was pulling their weight this afternoon,’ she replied. ‘As the local WVS supervisor, our patron, my friend Lady Charlemondley, expects me to keep a finger on the pulse of things here.’ She pronounced it Chumley, her voice raised just loud enough for everyone to hear and appreciate her intimacy with the upper classes.
‘Your fingers would have been put to better use by lending a hand with all those blasted sandwiches,’ muttered Peggy as she gathered up the empty meat tins and threw them in a cardboard box.
Doris raised a severely plucked eyebrow, her expression flat with disapproval. ‘My role in the WVS does not include such things, Margaret, as you very well know.’
Peggy took a deep breath and carried on clearing up. Doris didn’t do anything very much, she thought wearily, and yet she couldn’t resist her little digs. She had a girl to do the housework and most of the cooking, a husband who gave her a generous clothing allowance, and a son who saw to the garden and any of the repairs that needed doing around her posh house in Havelock Road. She had a regular weekly appointment at the hairdresser’s, could shop in the expensive department store in the High Street and afford to have tea in the swanky restaurant upstairs. All in all, she and her sister lived in different worlds.
‘It seems to me, Doris,’ she said as she cleaned the breadboard and stowed it away with the knives and the last tiny portion of margarine, ‘that you are a very fortunate woman. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish up here, and you’re getting in my way.’
Doris stepped back hastily as Peggy wiped a cloth over the table and sent crumbs flying. ‘Anthony has managed to borrow a car from the MOD and will be arriving at your house on the dot of seven to pick up that girl. Be sure she doesn’t keep him waiting.’
Peggy looked up from her task and frowned. Doris’s lovely, shy, clever son Anthony had been courting her lodger, Suzy, for a few weeks now, and Doris had made it clear she didn’t approve. ‘I don’t see why she should,’ she replied. ‘Why, what’s the occasion?’
‘As Anthony seems determined to go against my wishes by seeing the wretched girl, I have decided to invite her to dinner.’
Peggy felt a stab of alarm. ‘When did you arrange this?’
‘This morning. Anthony is off duty for the day from his important work for the MOD, and I sent him to the hospital to issue the invitation.’
Peggy folded her arms and regarded her sister steadily. ‘I hope this invitation was sent with the best of intentions, Doris. Suzy’s a lovely girl, and I will not have you making mischief.’
Doris’s expression hardened as she lifted her chin. ‘I don’t know what you mean by that remark, Margaret. Susan has been invited to an intimate family dinner so that we can all get to know one another better. I cannot see why you should think there is any mischief involved.’
Peggy almost shuddered at the thought of an ‘intimate family dinner’ with Doris playing the grande dame, and waiting to pounce on the slightest sign that Suzy felt uncomfortable or daunted. She needed to get home quickly and have a quiet word with the girl, who was no doubt already quaking with nerves, for she knew how awful Doris could be when on her high horse.
Doris looked at the thin gold watch on her wrist. ‘Edward will be closing the shop soon, and I need to get home to lay out his suit and so on. Phyllis is cooking dinner, and if I don’t keep an eye on her, she’ll burn the chicken.’
‘Chicken, eh? My word, you are pushing the boat out, Doris,’ she said wryly.
‘One has standards, Margaret – even in these troubled times.’
Peggy didn’t doubt it as she dragged on her worn raincoat and tied her headscarf under her chin. Doris liked to show off and had the means to do it.
She quickly handed over the box of tins to another volunteer and followed her sister out of the canteen and into the vast room that had been turned into something resembling a jumble sale. Trestle tables groaned beneath piles of donated clothing, bedding and kitchen appliances, while prams, toys and stacks of books had been set out by the Almoner’s office. The mattresses which would be used at night by the homeless had been stacked against the far wall, the pillows and blankets safely locked away in the recruiting office’s store cupboard. The Town Hall had become a refuge, an advisory centre and a recruiting base, and it was always busy.
Daisy was crying and had kicked off her blankets, and one glance outside confirmed that the rain was coming down in horizontal stair-rods as the wind howled up from the seafront. She held the squalling baby in her arms and eyed the Bentley that was parked at the bottom of the Town Hall steps. ‘I thought you’d locked that away for the duration,’ she remarked.
‘I did,’ replied Doris as she unfurled a smart black umbrella. ‘But the weather is so ghastly, and I have enough petrol stored away to use it occasionally.’ Before Peggy had the chance to ask for a lift home, she’d hurried down the steps, climbed into the car and within minutes was driving down the High Street.
Peggy gaped at her thoughtlessness and glared as the brake lights flashed at the bottom of the hill and the indicator arm flicked out. ‘Thanks for nothing, Doris,’ she muttered beneath the baby’s yells. ‘You really are the absolute limit, and I hope Phyllis burns your rotten chicken to a ruddy cinder.’
She felt marginally better for venting her rage, but the memory of her selfish sister’s car sailing off blithely through the wind and rain still rankled as she changed Daisy’s nappy and stuck a dummy in her wailing mouth.
By the time she reached the back door of Beach View Boarding House she felt – and probably looked – like a drowned rat.
‘Get yourself inside,’ said Ron as he threw open the door and ordered the overexcited Harvey to get back into the kitchen. ‘There’s tea in the pot, dinner in the oven, and the fire’s burning a treat.’ He pulled the pram in after her and plucked the yelling Daisy from her blankets. ‘See to yourself, Peggy, girl. I’ll be dealing with this wee wain.’
Peggy smiled at him with profound gratitude as she pulled off the sodden headscarf and raincoat and left them both to drip dry over the stone sink that stood beneath the copper boiler and mangle.
Slipping out of her wet shoes, she carried them upstairs to the kitchen where Harvey was waiting for her, his tail thumping on the floor in welcome. Peggy patted his head, kissed Cordelia’s soft cheek and dropped her shoes on the mat in front of the range fire. ‘I can’t remember the last time I felt so tired,’ she admitted as she poured a cup of welcoming tea. ‘It’s been an endless day.’
‘Ron brought some more milk stout,’ said Cordelia. ‘Perhaps you should have a glass of that instead of weak tea?’
Peggy grimaced. ‘I’d rather have tea, however weak.’
Daisy was still hiccuping with fury at not being fed, but had become fascinated by Ron’s sweeping eyebrows. She made a grab for one and held on, broke into a beaming smile as he winced, and gave it a hefty tug.
‘To be sure, the pain is worth it to have no more crying,’ Ron groaned as the tiny fist took a tighter hold.
‘You should have let Fran give them a trim when she offered,’ said Cordelia with a glint of humour in her eyes. ‘It’s your own fault they stick out like that.’
‘Did I hear my name being taken in vain?’ Fran came into the kitchen, her auburn curls dancing about her shoulders in disarray as she plumped into a chair at the table and reached for the teapot. ‘That’s a fair hold she has on you there, Uncle Ron,’ she said and laughed. ‘Are you sure you’ll not be letting me trim them brows?’
Ron tried glowering at her, but didn’t quite manage it, for he was trying not to laugh as he fended off the tiny pugilist who seemed determined to batter him.
Peggy sank into her chair by the fire and lit a cigarette as the little Irish nurse and her father-in-law teased one another. Just being at home in her kitchen and sitting down was enough to restore her. ‘Is Suzy back yet?’ she asked.
‘Aye, that she is, and in a terrible lather upstairs, worrying the life out of herself about what to wear to this awful dinner at Doris’s.’
Peggy told them about seeing Doris earlier. ‘It’s just so typical of my sister to give out such an invitation with no notice and expect everyone to jump. I’d better go up and have a word with Suzy. Warn her what to expect.’
‘I t’ink she already has a fair idea, Peggy, and she’s girding her loins to prepare for battle, so she is.’ Fran giggled. ‘What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in that house tonight.’
‘It’s not funny, Fran,’ said Rita as she came stomping into the room in her heavy waterproof trousers, thick boots and moth-eaten WWI flying jacket. She dumped her rain-soaked goggles and leather helmet on the table and poured a cup of tea. ‘Doris can make things very sticky for Suzy, and she’ll have to be on her guard all night. Just be thankful it’s not you.’
‘To be sure, Anthony’s a lovely wee man, but he’s not my type. One look at Doris, and any girl worth her salt would be running for their lives, so they would. Suzy deserves a medal.’
Peggy watched as Rita discarded the sodden jacket and the two girls drank the stewed tea. Fran was from Ireland and, like Suzy, was a nurse at the hospital. Rita was a local girl who’d come to live at Beach View after she’d been bombed out, and now drove fire engines for a living when she wasn’t organising motorcycle races out at the old track. Fran’s blue eyes and wild autumnal hair were in direct contrast to Rita’s sleeker black curls and dark eyes – and although their personalities were very different, they seemed to rub along without too much falling out.
Peggy gave a sigh of contentment as she settled into the fireside chair and enjoyed not having to do anything for a few minutes. The stew was in the oven, the potatoes cooking on the hob while Ron fed Daisy her mashed veg and warmed her bottle in a jug of hot water. Left to her own devices, Peggy could have nodded off then and there.
‘Right,’ said Ron as he handed Daisy and the bottle of formula milk over to Fran. ‘I’m off to open up the pub. I’ll be back for me tea, and then I’ve got a Home Guard meeting at the church hall.’
As he left the house with Harvey trotting at his heels, the kitchen was invaded by Sarah, her younger sister Jane, and the rather pale-looking Suzy. ‘I think I’ve settled on the right thing to wear,’ she said distractedly, ‘but it’s awfully hard to know what an intimate family dinner really means in your sister’s house.’
Peggy eyed the sleeveless black dress with the sweetheart neckline and the lovely cut that skimmed the material over the girl’s narrow hips to fall just to her knees. Her long, slender legs were bare, but shown off to their best advantage in black high-heeled court shoes. She carried a small black satin bag and her only jewellery was pearl studs and a string of more pearls around her elegant neck. ‘You look wonderful,’ said Peggy truthfully.
‘She looks like a model in one of those fashion magazines,’ breathed Jane as she perched on the arm of Cordelia’s chair. ‘Do you like the way Sarah’s done Suzy’s hair up into a chignon? Mummy always had hers like that, and I think it’s very sophisticated.’
‘You don’t think it’s all too much?’ asked Suzy with a worried frown. ‘Black’s a bit formal, but I didn’t think a blouse and skirt was smart enough, and—’
‘Believe me,’ interrupted Peggy, ‘you look just perfect.’
But as Cordelia sighed in delight and Suzy did a twirl for the other girls and basked in their admiration, Peggy was sharply reminded of the day when her daughter Anne had been invited to lunch with Martin’s snobbish parents. It had been ghastly for her, poor lamb, and she’d come home in tears having been looked down upon and sneered at all the way through that awful meal. But she and Martin had married despite his horrid parents, and although the war meant they were rarely together, she knew it was a strong and enduring marriage. She just hoped Suzy showed the same fortitude, for she wouldn’t put it past Doris to do her best – in a subtle, but cutting way – to make the evening hell for her.
‘Right, come on Rita,’ said Fran as she handed a sleepy Daisy over to Peggy. ‘The staff car will be here in less than two hours, and you can’t go to a party looking like that.’
‘I haven’t got anything else,’ retorted Rita. ‘And if they don’t like me the way I am, then I’m not interested in going.’
‘Will you be listening to yourself?’ replied Fran crossly. ‘Anyone would think you were one of those odd women who never marry and live with their “friend” Sybilla or Enid – and who breed dogs and stride about in trousers, smoking a pipe with their hair cut like a man’s.’
‘I’m not like that at all,’ retorted Rita hotly. ‘I got dressed up for the cocktail party the other week, didn’t I?’
Fran rolled her eyes. ‘I do
not
call an old jumper and skirt dressing up – and you sat in the corner and glowered at everyone so no one dared talk to you, and then you just left without a word to anyone after half an hour and came home.’
‘I think Rita just needs to feel a bit more confident about herself,’ interrupted Sarah quietly. ‘If she’s not used to parties, then it can be terribly daunting to find yourself in a crowded room full of strangers.’ She turned to Rita. ‘Would you mind terribly if I helped you to get ready, Rita? Only I really do think the right clothes for the occasion make such a difference to how one feels, and the dress we’ve picked out for you is very pretty.’