Authors: Kathleen McGurl
‘No, nothing gets left over now. But I do shake the tablecloth outside so the birds can have any crumbs.’
‘That’s sweet of you.’
Joan turned to look at Jack. He was biting his lip, as though there was something more he wanted to say. As she watched him, he shook his head as if to clear it of unwelcome thoughts, then took her hand in both of his.
‘Joan, I do wish I’d met you earlier. Or later, when we’ve won the war and we’re in peacetime again. It’s too bad we had to meet right now.’
‘What do you mean? I’m glad I’ve met you. I love being with you, Jack.’ Why was he unhappy to know her? She’d thought he liked her as much as she liked him. She hoped she hadn’t got it all wrong.
‘Oh, Joan, I love being with you, too. More than you can know. But the thing is, it can’t last.’
He had met someone else. It must be that. Joan felt her heart plummet. She withdrew her hand from his. ‘Jack, you owe me nothing. If you want to stop seeing me, that’s all right. I shan’t mind.’
He snatched her hand back again and pulled it to his lips to kiss. ‘Joan, it’s not that at all. The thing is, I’ve done it. I’ve signed up, I’ve taken the King’s shilling, and I’m to leave for my basic training in three days. I’ll be home again as soon as I get a pass out, probably after a couple of months, but you won’t want to wait for me, will you? A beautiful girl like you, you won’t want to wait for someone like me.’
‘Oh, Jack! Of course I’ll wait for you! And I’ll write to you, every day if you like. Two months—that’s nothing. You’ll be home in no time. Before the end of April. You’ll be back again in springtime.’
Jack’s face lit up. Joan smiled. He’d seriously believed she wouldn’t want to wait for him! She would miss him, but the weeks would pass in a flash and then they would be together again. Joan didn’t let herself think beyond then—to the time when Jack would have finished training and would be sent to the war. It was enough—they had a few days now, and then the promise of a few more days together in a little while. Mags had spoken about how in wartime you had to just live in the moment for you did not know what would happen next. For the first time, Joan felt she was beginning to understand what that really meant.
‘You’ll write? Really? Joan, that would be marvellous! And may I write to you? Would it cause a problem with your father?’
She pulled a face. ‘He would never allow it. But I’ll think of some way you can write to me.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I wonder if Mrs Atkins at the WVS would allow the letters to be sent via her. She likes you. I’ll ask her.’
Jack smiled at her, then put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. She relished the feeling of his strength and warmth beneath his tweed coat, and laid her head against his shoulder. He leaned his head onto hers. She wondered if he might kiss her, but he didn’t, and they sat like that until they both began to feel cold.
October 2014
‘Let’s get inside and make some coffee,’ Ali said, as they got out of the car after returning from the visit to Great-gran. Kelly nodded, her thoughts still on what Great-gran had said about Joanie. She’d guessed the third girl in the photo was Joan, and that she’d been Great-gran’s sister. She couldn’t say how she knew this, but she just knew. There was something about this house. She’d felt it ever since she moved in, and even more so after they’d found the writing on her wall and the box in the cellar. She couldn’t say anything to Mum or anyone else—they’d think she was mad—but she felt as though there was a presence in the house. Like a ghost, or a spirit. It was Joan, of course. Hanging around in the house where she’d grown up. Why would she do that? Kelly felt as though she couldn’t rest until she found out the full story.
‘Ladies, how are you?’ Jason Bergmann’s head appeared over the fence that divided his house from theirs. He had a broom in his hand, and had been sweeping autumn leaves into a pile. ‘It’s a glorious day. I’m just trying to get this garden in a fit state to face the winter. I must say, your pampas grass looks amazing at this time of year.’
‘Yes, it is lovely,’ said Ali. ‘We were just going to make some coffee. Do you want to come and join us?’
‘Thanks, I’d love to. Give me five minutes to get these leaves cleared up, and I’ll be round.’
Kelly smiled at him. He was a good neighbour to have. She wondered if her mum possibly fancied him a little. He was her type—all twinkly eyes and smooth manners. Unlike her dad who was a little rougher round the edges. ‘See you in a minute, then,’ she called to him, as she followed Ali inside.
As soon as she stepped into the hallway she felt the familiar prickly sensation that Joan’s presence was around. Looking down at herself she remembered she was in one of her retro 1940s frocks. She wondered why she bought them—it was as though Joan influenced her taste in clothes. ‘Just nipping upstairs to change,’ she said. Sometimes she felt better if she was in her own stuff.
By the time she came back downstairs, in jeans and hoodie, Jason was seated at the kitchen table drinking his coffee. ‘Hi again, Kelly,’ he said. ‘Oh, you’ve changed. I was going to say, I love that retro look you wear. Really suits you.’
Kelly flashed him a brief smile at the compliment.
‘Kelly’s very interested in the 1940s,’ Ali said to Jason.
‘Yeah, well, between doing A level history where we’re doing stuff about the war, and trying to find out more about my great-great-aunt who used to live here, sometimes it feels like the forties are all around me. Can’t get away from it.’ Kelly smiled wryly. The forties weren’t just all around her, but in her head too. Sometimes it felt as though she was going mad.
‘Your great-great-aunt?’ said Jason. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you mean Betty Perkins? You were related to her?’
Kelly opened her mouth to answer, but her mother got in there first.
‘Betty Perkins was my great-aunt,’ Ali said. ‘She left the house to me in her will.’
‘Wow. That’s just…well.’ He looked as though he was about to say something else, then shook his head briefly as though he’d thought better of it. ‘You must have been close to her, Ali.’
‘Not at all, really, but she had no one else to leave it to, I suppose. I must admit, it’s a fabulous place to live.’
Kelly rolled her eyes. Might be nice for the rest of them, but they weren’t plagued by the other great-great-aunt’s presence. Jason noticed her expression and laughed. ‘Hey, I’ve just remembered, I found something you might like, Kelly. I was sorting through Mum’s old costume jewellery, and there was a little brooch, kind of forties style I’d guess. Would you like it? It’d go with your retro stuff. I thought of you when I found it, but forgot to bring it round.’
‘Yes, I’d love to see it,’ Kelly replied. ‘But I can’t possibly take it from you.’
‘Yes you can. It’s not worth anything, and if you don’t want it I’ll just give it to a charity shop or something. But I’d like you to have it.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out his front door key. ‘Here, why don’t you pop round and get it now. It’s on the sideboard in the hallway; you can’t miss it.’
She took the key from him, intrigued to see the brooch, and went next door. Jason’s house was different from all the others on the street. It was a chalet-style house, red brick with dormer windows. The exterior of the upper floor was tile-hung. Every other house in the street was more like theirs, rendered and painted, with bay windows. As she let herself in, she vaguely wondered why Jason’s house was so different. It was obviously much more recent than the others.
The brooch was on the hall table as he’d said, a pretty piece made of marcasite, in the shape of a butterfly. One or two stones were missing but they barely showed. It would look lovely pinned at the neck of her blue forties dress, she thought.
Kelly had never been in Jason’s house before. She looked around, at the peach-coloured carpet and floral wallpaper. Not the kind of décor you’d expect from a single man. She remembered he’d inherited it from his mother. That made more sense.
Something Great-gran had said about Joan, and her saving a dog from next door when a bomb fell came back to her. That must be it—this must be where the bomb had fallen. Great-gran had said it was close. That would explain why Jason’s house was a more recent style than the other houses in the street—it must have been built on a bomb site. She wondered whether Joan and her family had been hiding in their cellar when the bomb fell. How terrifying that must have been! And according to Great-gran, Joan had rescued a dog from the bombed house. She must have been so brave. Kelly felt a surge of respect for her newly discovered great-great-aunt.
Later that evening, Ali was sitting with Pete in the living room, finishing a bottle of wine. The kids were both upstairs in their rooms. Ali told Pete what Gran had told her and Kelly that afternoon.
‘So the third girl in the photo is your gran’s sister?’ said Pete. ‘Wow. Why had she never mentioned her before? And why do you think this Joan’s stuff was all hidden away in the cellar? There’s nothing down there for either your gran or Betty. Just Joan’s things.’
‘I don’t know,’ Ali replied. ‘It’s all a bit of a mystery. We couldn’t stay and ask Gran too much about it—it was obviously upsetting and tiring for her to be asked about Joan after all these years. But we do need to find out. Kelly’s desperate to know more about what happened. She seems to be more and more obsessed with the war years and especially this Joan.’
‘She’ll forget it all soon enough and move on to a new obsession. You know how teenagers are.’ Pete picked up the bottle and topped up both their glasses. ‘It wasn’t all that long ago when she refused to wear anything but Barbie pink and insisted when she grew up she was going to be a fashion model. It’s a phase and it’ll pass.’
‘I hope so. I’m beginning to find it a little creepy, though, when she dresses up in her forties gear with her hair pinned in curls. I prefer her when she’s being a twenty-first-century teen. Mind you, it’s all good input to her A level courses I suppose.’ Ali took a sip of her wine. ‘Can’t believe the weekend’s over already and I’m back at work tomorrow.’
‘Poor you,’ Pete said, planting a kiss on her head. ‘I’ll be working hard on the DIY as usual. Every day’s a work day for me.’
‘Talking of work,’ Ali said quietly, ‘how’s your job-hunting going? You’ve not said much about it recently.’
‘It’s on hold, for the moment, love. You know that. I’m too busy doing up this house.’
‘But—we’re running out of money, Pete! Your redundancy pay has pretty much all gone, and my salary can only just cover our regular living expenses. Unless you start bringing in some money soon we’ll be broke.’
‘We’re fine. I’ll get this house finished and then look in earnest for a new job. I can’t do both things at the same time.’
Ali bit her tongue. She had to work full time and do all the shopping and cooking and general chores around the house. She could manage more than one thing at once. Surely Pete could find time to do a few application forms and attend some interviews in between working on the house?
‘What worries me, Pete, is that we won’t be able to afford to finish the house. We’ll have to live in it half completed. So you’d be better off looking for a job so we can afford to finish it.’
‘Ali, how on earth do you think I could finish doing up the house if I had a full-time job? Like I said, I can only do one thing at once. We could mortgage the house—that would give us some money to finish the work.’
‘And how do you think we’d be able to afford the mortgage repayments? My salary barely covers our day-to-day expenses, as you know. I can’t do any more hours than I already do. If you got a job, we’d just have to accept that the renovations will take a lot longer to finish. I’m beginning to wonder if we did the right thing moving in here. The way we’re going, I’m scared we might have to sell the house and buy ourselves somewhere cheaper after all.’
Pete stood up and turned to face her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. This is our home now. It’ll be a struggle for a while—we knew that when we moved in. We’ll need to be careful with our finances, but once the house is complete, I’ll find a job. Then you’ll be glad we stuck it out here. We’ll have a gorgeous house in a great location, and plenty of money to enjoy life. Stop fretting about it. It’ll be fine.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t help fretting, as you put it. I hate having to scrimp and save. I’d rather work fewer hours myself, and have more time to spend with Gran and the kids.’
‘Won’t be for long. Next year, love, it’ll all be done, and I’ll be back in work. You’ll see.’ Pete sat down again and put his arm around her shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze. ‘Hang on in there.’
Hang on in there, he said. All very well for him to say that, but what with the money worries and the stress of living in a building site, Ali was finding life hard at present. She snuggled up to him. ‘I hope you’re right, love. I really do.’
February 1944
‘When will your young man be here to fetch you?’ asked Mrs Atkins, with a wink.
Joan blushed. ‘He said he’d come at three o’clock. Are you sure it’s all right for me to leave early today?’
‘Of course it is, love. It’s a special day, as it’s the last time you’ll be able to see him for a while. I do believe you have to grasp every opportunity for happiness that comes your way. One never knows quite what is around the corner.’ Mrs Atkins stared off into the middle distance, then shook her head and turned back to Joan. ‘And it’s perfectly all right if he sends his letters to you via me. I can bring them to you here. No need for your father to know anything about it.’
‘I can’t thank you enough, Mrs Atkins. You’ve been very kind to us.’
‘Not at all. It’s hard, being young and in love when there’s a war on. I’ll do anything I can to make things easier for you.’
There was a shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. Joan suddenly felt a rush of love and gratitude towards the older woman, and flung her arms around her. It was so good to have someone on their side, who understood. Mrs Atkins had never said anything, but Joan knew from WVS gossip that she’d lost her husband in the Great War, and had never married again.