Secrets of the Singer Girls (23 page)

‘I don’t hate you.’ Sal sighed, casting her mind back to the events of that fateful night. ‘You won’t be the first woman to be swept up in the moment and get caught
out later. There must have been madness in the air that Saturday night. But whatever are you going to do now, Dais?’ she asked, a tremor in her voice.

‘There’s only one possible thing I can do,’ Daisy replied, gripping the edge of the bedframe for support.

‘Oh, Daisy, no,’ Sal cried, fear bleaching her face. ‘You can’t. Not that. You can’t . . .’

‘What, get rid of it?’ Daisy sobbed, feeling hysteria rising in her chest. ‘Don’t you understand, Sal? I have no other choice.’

‘I’ll help you find another way,’ Sal pledged firmly. ‘We will come up with a solution together. Just promise me you won’t do anything rash. I couldn’t bear
to think of you doing something you may later regret.’

‘But don’t you get it?’ Daisy cried in despair. ‘Unless Robert comes back and marries me tomorrow, my child’s life is already destroyed. Can you imagine me pushing
a pram with an illegitimate black child up Green Street Market? I’ll have committed him to a life as a destitute bastard. I’m going to be hung, drawn and quartered for this.

‘You had a husband when you had your babies, Sal,’ she wept bitterly. ‘No matter that he’s a no-good bastard, and a rotten father and husband, you at least had a ring on
your finger. In folk’s eyes, that makes you respectable and me the fallen woman. I will be a social pariah, the lowest of the low. The whole of Bethnal Green will shun me.’

Sal sighed heavily. ‘I understand what you’re saying, but promise me you won’t do anything stupid, not until you’ve given me a chance to think things through. Perhaps we
could both leave the East End,’ she said, a glimmer of hope surfacing in her eyes. ‘Start up a new life somewhere nobody else knows us. I can get away from Reggie, and you get to keep
your baby. Just think . . .’

Daisy felt her face soften at her friend’s attempts to help. ‘You’re a loyal friend, Sal,’ she said sadly, ‘but leaving the East End won’t solve a thing. Our
troubles will only follow us. Reggie will find you, and I’ll just have a new lot of neighbours to judge me.’

The sound of the front door thudding open made them both sit bolt upright.

‘Frank?’ gasped Sal.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Daisy answered. ‘He’s working away at the moment.’

Just then the bedroom door swung open and there stood a breathless Vera, accompanied by Mr Gladstone.

‘Whatever were you thinking, leaving the party like that without telling anyone where you were going? Have you taken leave of your senses?’ Vera snapped.

‘I’m sorry, Vera. I just didn’t feel myself . . .’

‘My fault,’ replied Sal calmly, getting to her feet. ‘I came to find her and she was all for coming back to the pub, but I kept her talking. I’m so sorry.’

‘Well,’ spluttered Vera, smoothing down her hair. ‘A fine affair this is. I’d have thought you’d have both known better than to simply disappear like that. I was
worried sick that Reggie had returned.’

‘I’m ever so sorry, Vera, really I am,’ said Sal sincerely.

‘And you, young lady, what have you to say for yourself?’

Daisy sat mute. For the first time in her life she had absolutely nothing to say back to her big sister.

‘Come on, Vera,’ soothed Mr Gladstone. ‘Poor Daisy looks all done in – give the girl a break. She’s safe and sound, and that’s all that matters, eh? Come on,
Sal, I’ll walk you home. Night-night, all.’ He winked at Daisy as he guided Sal to the door.

His kindness made Daisy want to weep and throw herself into his arms for a cuddle. That’s all she really needed right now, she realized with a sharp pang of pain: a cuddle from her mum.
But who on earth could save her now?

Five weeks on from the party and Sal was out of her mind with worry. Since her confession, Daisy had been pretending nothing had happened. Every day that she buried her head in
the sand was another day that the little life inside her grew and took shape.

Daisy had taken to making sure she was surrounded by the other girls on dinner and tea breaks, and Sal knew it was because she didn’t want to discuss her problem. But she had had enough of
Daisy’s tactics. ‘She may be choosing to ignore it, but I sure as hell won’t,’ she muttered angrily to herself.

It was a Saturday dinner break when she at last got the chance to corner Daisy. Sal spotted her sitting alone in the canteen, forlornly pushing a spoon round her bowl of soup.

Daisy’s eyes looked up dully when she spotted Sal coming towards her.

‘All right, Sal,’ she murmured. ‘I know these bowls of soup only cost a penny, but they’re not exactly big on taste, are they? What do you reckon they put in it? Besides
grey water.’

‘I’m not here to discuss soup recipes with you,’ said Sal firmly, sitting down in the seat opposite. She lowered her voice and glanced around the canteen to make sure no one
else could overhear what she was about to say next. Fortunately, there were only a few Singer Girls about and they were huddled in a corner out of earshot.

‘I’m here to ask you exactly what it is you intend to do about the fact that you are currently carrying Robert’s child. If you keep on at this rate, Dais, you’ll start to
show and someone will spot it, and then what? You must be what by now, ten weeks? You can’t side-step the issue any longer.’

Daisy refused to look at her, just carried on staring at the Formica-topped table and stirring her soup.

‘Please, sweetheart, I beg of you,’ Sal whispered. Her voice was firm but soft, gently entreating her friend to do the right thing. ‘This problem isn’t going to go away.
I should know. If you don’t deal with problems as soon as they surface, they only get bigger. Do you think I don’t lie awake every single night regretting that I never left Reggie the
day he first raised his hand to me? I’m right here by your side, Dais. I’ll stay with you when you tell Vera, and that needs to be sooner rather than later.’

The silence stretched on and Sal felt her patience start to wear thin.

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Daisy, put down that spoon and look me in the eye.’

Daisy lifted her huge emerald eyes and set her spoon down with a clatter. ‘I’m not going to tell Vera.’ She shrugged.

‘But you have to,’ implored Sal. ‘She’s going to find out.’

‘She won’t. I’m going to get it sorted very soon,’ Daisy replied, returning to pushing her spoon round her bowl in ever decreasing circles.

Sal’s head spun as she grappled with Daisy’s remark.

‘Sorted . . . sorted?’ she gasped. ‘Whatever do you mean by that?’

But Daisy was saved from answering by the sudden arrival at the table of Poppy and Vera.

‘Excuse me.’ Daisy scraped her chair back and fled from the canteen.

‘Poor Daisy,’ murmured Poppy. ‘She’s not been terribly well of late, has she?’

‘Yes, Sal,’ added Vera suspiciously. ‘She walks around like a ghost, and she’s right off her food. What is going on?’

Now it was Sal’s turn to stare at the table. She couldn’t abide lying to Vera, but neither was it her misery to share.

‘She’s missing Robert, Vera, that’s all,’ she replied.

‘What, that GI chap? Still?’ Vera shot back in surprise. ‘She needs to pull her socks up and stop acting like a silly love-struck girl. She must have known there was no future
in that when she met him.’

‘I dare say,’ Sal replied. ‘But she was rather taken with him.’

‘Perhaps I am being a little harsh on her,’ Vera relented, recalling the conversation in which she promised not to judge her younger sister.

‘Tell you what, tomorrow’s a Sunday. Why don’t you come over for your tea? See if we can’t take her mind off that American. Archie’s coming, and Poppy
too.’

‘But what about Frank?’ asked Sal, eyeing Vera warily. ‘Won’t he mind us being there? He won’t take kindly to us all crowding round, especially not if he’s
napping.’

Vera’s face clouded at the mention of her father’s name. ‘As you know, he doesn’t exactly keep me up to date with his movements, and he’s something of a night owl,
but for the past five weeks he’s been working away, on a job down the coast, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him. I can’t pretend I’m not relieved. Except yesterday . .
.’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Go on,’ Sal urged.

‘Well, yesterday two police constables were waiting on the doorstep when I got back from this place. They wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but they were asking all sorts of
questions about him. The hours he kept, where he worked, that sort of thing. I answered to the best of my ability, of course, but I have a nasty feeling about it all.’

Sal and Poppy said nothing, but there was no disguising the sense of fear that suddenly descended. For when it came to Frank, each and every one of them knew that whatever it was, it spelled
trouble. All too soon dinner was over and they trooped back upstairs to the factory floor. Sal chewed hard on her bottom lip as she took her place behind her machine and glanced over at the ashen
face of Daisy seated beside her.

‘You’re back, then,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t think I’m going to forget what you said earlier. Vera’s invited me over to yours for my tea tomorrow and you
and I are going to talk this through properly once and for all. You have to tell Vera too, and tomorrow. In the meantime, I beg of you, don’t do anything stupid.’

‘Dinner break’s over, Sal. There’s work to tend to,’ said Vera curtly, nodding at her as she swept past. The speed by which she could transform herself from friend to
forelady never ceased to amaze Sal.

‘Course. Sorry, Mrs Shadwell,’ she mumbled, shooting a last loaded look at Daisy. Tomorrow, she would get to the bottom of this sorry mess. She just hoped she would be in time.

The next day, Vera stomped through the streets of Bethnal Green, glancing about as she walked. It was early on a Sunday morning and the streets were largely empty but for army
personnel, and kids playing on street corners. Every shop was closed for business, their windows crisscrossed with anti-blast tape. Vera spotted three young boys squeezing through the boarded-up
gap in a bombsite, and unusually she found she didn’t even have the breath in her body to haul them out and chastise them.

Her thoughts were simply too preoccupied with her younger sister and her increasingly strange behaviour. Daisy had left the house even earlier than Vera had that morning, as shaky as a dog in
cold water, professing to want some fresh air of all things. Daisy hadn’t really been herself since this GI chap of hers had left. Thank goodness he was off the scene. Vera bristled in
annoyance. What business had he breaking a young girl’s heart when he knew fine well he would be off again with his unit?

Only Archie, dear sweet Archie, gave her any measure of joy at the moment. He really was a rock. He had been their knight in shining armour when Reggie had threatened them outside Trout’s;
he had told no one of the real reason Sal had to vanish off to the countryside; and he seemed to spend his life thinking of ways to make her and all the Singer Girls happy. They broke the mould
when they made Archie Gladstone. Not that she would tell him that, mind.

So lost in her reverie was she that she had reached the steps of the children’s hospital and, without realizing, nearly walked clean past it. No wonder Daisy was a daydreamer, if this was
where thinking about men led you!

Vera took a cautious look left and right, and only once assured that there was no one she knew in the vicinity did she pull her hat down firmly over her head and walk quickly inside. No one knew
she came here every Sunday morning, and it was imperative it remain that way too. Vera swept up the corridors on autopilot. She had walked to Matron’s office that many times she could do it
with her eyes closed. At the door, she knocked softly before a distant voice summoned her in. Vera found the elderly lady sitting at her desk, stirring her tea thoughtfully.

‘Vera, my dear, so lovely to see you.’ Matron smiled as she looked up from her cup and motioned to the seat opposite. ‘Won’t you sit down and have some tea with
me?’

Silver threads of morning light streamed in through the window and bathed the matron in an ethereal glow, or so it seemed to Vera.

‘I’d love a cup.’ Vera grinned back warmly as she took her usual seat. ‘With the sun coming in like that, you look like you’re wearing a halo. You certainly deserve
one. You’re my guardian angel. I honestly don’t know how you’ve put up with me all these years.’

‘Nonsense,’ Matron scoffed. ‘You know I think the world of you, Vera. I always have done. Right from when they first brought you in here after the fire. Do you remember? You
were such a timid little thing.’

‘Do I remember?’ laughed Vera, her hands instinctively moving to her chest, where she traced the outline of her scars. ‘Some memories never fade. I was nothing but a girl,
fifteen years old when I first arrived, and frightened out of my wits, grieving for my mother, but you looked after me all those months on the ward. And you carried on looking after me even after .
. .’ She felt her voice trail off as Matron’s eyes looked deep into hers.

‘You know, Vera, your mother would be very proud of how you’ve turned out,’ she said softly. ‘She would perhaps think that now is the time to tell the truth, unburden
yourself from the secrets of the past. Things are rarely how we perceive them to be, and you might find solace in speaking freely. A lot of water has passed under the bridge . . .’

Vera shifted uncomfortably. ‘Please don’t,’ she whispered. ‘You know I can’t as long as that man is alive.’

‘Your father, you mean?’ she replied.

‘He’s no father,’ Vera spat back. ‘He’s an animal. Now he’s got the police sniffing around. What he’s been up to I shudder to think.’

‘That’s as may be, Vera, but don’t you see? Once you reveal the truth, you are free of that man forever. He will hold no power over you.’

Vera could tell Matron was imploring her now, pushing her to leap over the edge, take the giant step she had always imagined to be impossible.