Secrets of the Singer Girls (19 page)

The time for indecision was over. Quick as a flash, she reached out and, using all her strength, brought the belt down hard on his back. The belt buckle landed with a crack on his spine.

‘You bitch,’ he howled in rage, curling into a ball of pain.

Sal was up and out of the bed in seconds, adrenaline pumping in her chest as she tore across the room.

Her hands were trembling so much she could scarcely turn the door handle, and she was certain that any second a heavy hand would wrench her back.

‘Come on!’ she screamed hysterically, rattling at the handle. Suddenly, it sprang open and Sal threw herself through it like her limbs were on fire.

It wasn’t until she was running down the cobbled street, her breath ragged in her chest, that she realized she wasn’t even wearing shoes. Instinct told her to run to the only woman
she could really trust.

Across town at the dance hall, Daisy and Robert returned to their table and the GI gallantly pulled out a chair for Daisy to sit on.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, nibbling her bottom lip nervously.

‘What’s wrong, Daisy?’ Robert asked.

‘I just feel a bit bad letting Poppy and Sal go all alone like that,’ she replied.

‘Don’t you worry about Sal,’ he soothed. ‘From what I’ve seen, Sal’s a ballsy broad. Something tells me she can look after herself. Besides, she left straight
after Poppy – she will have caught up with her for sure and they’re probably both tucked up in bed by now.’

‘Sal’s not as strong as she’d have you believe,’ Daisy said, shaking her head.

‘I bet she’s just fine,’ insisted Robert. ‘But if you like, we can go and check to be on the safe side?’

Daisy shook her head. ‘You’re probably right. Besides, the selfish side of me just wants you all to myself this evening. I don’t even know where the time is going. It will be
over before we know it.’ Heartbroken tears filled her green eyes. ‘Who’s going to take me on picnics and dance with me in the street now?’ She giggled through her tears.

Robert smiled tenderly. ‘When you are in my arms, Daisy, all is right with the world. I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet a woman like you, a woman not afraid to want more.
Doesn’t hurt that you are so beautiful either,’ he whispered, pulling out a hanky and passing it to her. ‘Even when you’re crying. Come on, let’s get out of here. I
want to walk the streets of London with my favourite girl.’

Sniffing, Daisy dabbed at her eyes with the hanky and smiled up at her soldier sweetheart.

‘Remember what you told me, on our first date at the teahouse? That anything is possible. I truly believe that, Robert, now more than ever. For the first time since this war began I
actually feel hope for the future.’

And then, with a cheeky wink, ‘It doesn’t hurt that you’re so handsome either.’

Outside, the streets were bathed in soft silver moonlight and Robert draped his coat around her shoulders. They walked in silence, their footsteps echoing off the pavement, until they found a
leafy square flanked by smart white hotels and guesthouses.

Finding a quiet bench, they sat down. Robert drew Daisy to his broad chest and kissed her softly on the lips. A nightingale sang down from the branches of a tree above them, and at that moment,
Daisy felt as if they were the only two people in the city.

‘I wish we could stay like this forever,’ he smiled down at her, tracing his finger gently over her top lip. ‘Just you and me in this deserted square.’

Daisy’s heart splintered into thousands of tiny pieces.

Robert understood her and loved her in a way she had never experienced before, and soon he would be gone and there would be nothing left to fill the aching void. Even the long hours behind a
sewing machine hadn’t felt quite so monotonous these past two weeks, because she had felt truly alive for the first time in her life, his kisses playing over and over in her mind until she
had felt delightfully delirious.

There were no words left, and as Robert stood up and held out his hand, Daisy took it and rose too. Utterly spellbound, they walked in silence to the nearest hotel and smiled at each other
nervously as Robert held the door open for her.

Daisy felt her heart pounding in her chest as she anxiously looked about the quiet reception, with its gleaming brass bell on the polished mahogany countertop. Everything about the place looked
discreet and expensive. She had never been in a hotel before, and had only dreamed of being in one as smart as this.

‘A double room, please, sir,’ Robert said respectfully to the gentleman behind the desk.

‘Of course, sir,’ he replied, discreetly averting his gaze from Daisy’s to lift a set of keys from a large wooden board behind the counter. ‘And under what name shall I
book the room?’ His tone of voice suggested that Daisy and Robert weren’t the only English girl and GI soldier to step through these doors.

‘Mr and Mrs Taylor,’ Robert replied swiftly.

Daisy felt herself stifle a nervous giggle as they followed the bellboy up the plush carpeted stairs.

‘Do you have any luggage you need assistance with tonight, sir?’ asked the boy when they reached the room.

‘No, that will be all, thank you,’ Robert replied, handing him a generous tip. Only once the door clicked softly shut behind them and Daisy took in the large double bed did she let
her nerves swamp her.

‘This is frightfully grand,
Mr Taylor,’’
she giggled, sinking onto the edge of the bed. ‘You could fit our whole house in this room.’

Robert sat down next to her and the air crackled with nervous tension.

‘Daisy,’ he said softly, ‘we don’t have to do this. I don’t wish to take advantage of you. I love you so much I don’t want to do anything to hurt you.
I’ll be gone by first light tomorrow, and I daren’t risk being even a minute late returning to base.’

‘All the more reason to make the most of our time together,’ she whispered nervously.

Robert sighed and rested his chin on her head; then he closed his eyes and drew her body to his.

‘Daisy Shadwell,’ he murmured, breathing into her hair as his fingers trailed down her spine. ‘I want to remember this moment, whatever the future holds. I want to wake up next
to you every morning for the rest of my days, only not in some strange hotel room.’

‘Then promise me you’ll come back for me, Robert,’ she said fiercely.

‘I’d be a fraud, Daisy, if I said those words to you,’ he replied sadly. ‘But on my honour,
if
I can find a way back to you, I will.’

‘No more words,’ she whispered.

Tenderly he bent down and brushed his lips against hers, and no more words were said.

Afterwards, they lay naked in each other’s arms, their limbs entwined, but Daisy didn’t dare to drift off. She wanted to savour every second of this bittersweet time, but as the
clock ticked ominously on the wall and the first fingers of dawn crept in through the bottom of the blackout blind, her heart shattered like glass. Daisy knew with absolute certainty she was now
more helplessly in love with her dashing American soldier than ever. She had given him something so precious to remember her by and she prayed that this was just the beginning, not the end.

It was gone midnight when Vera opened the door. In a candlewick dressing gown and with her hair clad in metal rollers, she blinked groggily out into the darkened street. When
she spotted the pitiful sight in front of her, her eyes widened in horror.

‘Whatever’s happened, Sal?’ She clutched her dressing gown tightly around her.

Nearly mute with exhaustion, Sal clung to the door frame.

‘It’s Reggie,’ she whimpered. ‘He’s back.’

Vera’s face paled and she ushered Sal in. She shot a look up and down the street. Thank goodness it was pitch black and not a soul was about. Last thing either of them needed was one of
the neighbours spotting Sal and word getting back to Reggie.

Once inside the kitchen, Vera bustled to the stove and lit the flame under the kettle, blinking back the tears that were welling up as she did so.

When she turned round, Sal was sat in a chair by the coal fire, rocking back and forth and hugging her body tight. Her face and chest were a patchwork of bloody bruises.

Vera never stopped marvelling at the wickedness of some men. She knew better than most the fear and shock that would be consuming Sal right now. Frank, in all his cruelty, was no match for
Reggie, but she still felt every ounce of Sal’s pain.

Rushing upstairs to her bedroom, Vera fetched Sal a warm blanket and draped it round her shoulders before pouring her a tumbler of Frank’s whisky.

She pressed it into her shaking hands. ‘Drink this, love,’ she urged. ‘You’re in shock.’

When she had finished it, Vera carefully drew Sal into her arms and allowed her shattered body to relax. She could feel Sal’s whole being shivering and her teeth chattering as the full
trauma of her night washed over her.

‘It’s all right, love,’ she soothed over and over. ‘You’re safe now.’

It was a whole hour before Sal stopped violently shaking, which gave Vera time to work out a plan.

‘I can’t stay here, Vera,’ Sal whispered. ‘He’ll find me. Please help me.’

‘You have to go to the police, Sal,’ Vera urged. ‘It’s the only way. He could have killed you.’

‘No, Vera, and I forbid you from doing it either,’ she said sharply. ‘If I do that, they may charge him, then bail him, and then what do you think’s going to happen? He
will kill me on the spot. He’s a serving soldier. You know as well as I do, Vera, the police just regard it as a personal matter to be settled behind closed doors. They’d probably even
blame me for not informing him I’d moved when he was serving abroad, reckon I goaded him into it.’ Her words spat out the wisdom of someone with bitter experience.

Vera shook her head sadly. Deep down, she knew Sal was right.

‘In that case, we have to get you out of London,’ she said, thinking fast. ‘I’ll come with you to the station at first light and we’re going to get you on a train
down to stay with your boys in the countryside. Reggie doesn’t know where they’re billeted, does he?’

Sal shook her head scornfully. ‘He never even thought to ask. He doesn’t care about them. He could find me there too, I suppose, but I have nowhere else to go. Besides, I shudder to
think of him anywhere near the boys without me being there.’

‘That’s settled, then,’ she replied.

Another alarming thought occurred to Sal. ‘But what about the state of me?’ she cried, pointing to the purple bruises that were slowly spreading over her body like a storm cloud.
‘I can’t let the boys see me like this – they’ll be terrified.’

‘You tell them you’ve been bombed out and you have no place else to go. You’re their mother; they’ll be thrilled just to have you with them.’

Sal turned the information over in her mind, until another thought came to her. ‘But work: Mr Gladstone will never let me have time off, and I’ve no money.’

Vera held up her hand. ‘You leave Mr Gladstone to me. I’ll square it with him. We’ll cover your workload for you.’

Then she rose to her feet and reached over to her biscuit tin. Fishing about, she pulled a ten-bob note from the bottom. She pressed it into Sal’s trembling hand. ‘This should get
you down there and see you right. Just until the coast is clear and Reggie’s leave is up. Write me in a week or two and hopefully it will be safe for you to return.’

‘I can’t take this, Vera,’ said Sal tearfully. ‘This is all the money you have in the world. You and Daisy will need it.’

‘Nonsense,’ she replied flatly. ‘You can and you will. Your need is greater than ours.’

At this show of kindness, Sal started to weep again. ‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you, Vera,’ she cried.

‘You don’t need to, Sal,’ Vera replied. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we? And friends stick together. Besides,’ she added, ‘I know a little of what
you’re feeling.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Sal, groaning softly as she shifted her aching body to face Vera.

‘Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything,’ she blustered, absent-mindedly playing with the gold necklace that fell over her scars.

‘Come on, Vera, I know you better than that,’ replied Sal. ‘What did you mean?’

Vera sighed heavily, her weary face framed by the flickering light. She stared down at her hands: rough, calloused and parchment-dry from a lifetime spent scrubbing, sweeping and polishing, not
to mention the heavy toil that came from factory work. These were the hands of a working-class woman. They looked ancient, as if they belonged to a sixty-year-old, not a thirty-four-year-old woman,
but then, inside she felt ancient.

‘You’re not the only one who suffers at the hands of a cruel man,’ Vera stated, in a voice devoid of emotion.

‘Frank?’ Sal shot back.

Vera nodded.

Suddenly, another thought occurred to Sal and her eyes widened in alarm. ‘Where is he?’ she gasped.

‘Out,’ said Vera flatly. ‘Don’t worry – he never usually returns before morning.’

Sal relaxed a little. ‘I knew all was not well, ever since that night at the pub when you accused him of trying it on with Poppy. Has he raised his hand to you, Vera?’

Vera nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing on the scale of your Reggie, mind you, but I’ve been on the receiving end of his fists. But it’s his mind I fear more
than anything; he’s twisted in the head, Sal.’

Vera omitted to tell Sal of Frank’s threats to visit Poppy if she revealed his cruelty to Daisy, and nothing of the dark pain of her adolescence. She said just enough so Sal would know she
wasn’t alone.

‘But why didn’t you say anything?’ gasped Sal.

‘Same reason as you, more likely as not,’ she whispered. ‘He’s a terrible man, and I don’t think I really know half of what he’s capable of. And then
there’s Daisy. She worships her father and I have to protect her. For all her bravado, she’s young still. She could never handle knowing the truth about her father.’

Sal nodded thoughtfully. ‘I understand, Vera.’

A current of love flowed between the two women, the sad, shared understanding of what it felt like to be terrorized by a cruel man.