Where the Heart Lies (13 page)

Peggy gave a deep sigh as she regarded the beach where she’d played as a child, and where she’d taken her own children to paddle in the sea and hunt for treasures in the rock pools. It didn’t look at all inviting now. Concrete shipping traps were dotted across the bay, and ugly gun emplacements were positioned all along the promenade. The entrance to the pier had been blown up so it stood marooned in the water, and noxious dark clumps of oil and tar came in with every tide to cling to the iron footings and lie amid the pebbles. Thousands of tons of shipping had been sunk in the Channel over the past year, and the tar was a tragic reminder of how many had lost their lives.

She shook off these dark thoughts, determined not to spoil these precious few minutes by dwelling on the awfulness of war, and turned her attention to the white cliffs which loomed over the sadly depleted fishing fleet anchored on the shingle. Her father-in-law, Ron, had come from a long line of fishermen, and had run several boats and crews down on that beach before he retired and came to live in the basement of Beach View Boarding House. His eldest son, Frank, had continued the family tradition with his own three sons until the outbreak of war. Now that the boys had enlisted into the Royal Naval Reserve as minesweeper captains, Frank was the only Reilly who still fished off these shores.

Peggy’s thoughts drifted from Ron and Frank to her husband, Jim, Ron’s youngest son. She gave a wry smile. She’d married Jim during the last war despite her parents’ disapproval, and was as much in love with him today as she had been then. Contrary to all the warnings that he was a rogue and a fly-by-night, their marriage was still a happy one – but the depth of that contentment depended largely upon what sort of mischief Jim had been up to.

There had been moments when she could have killed him – when she’d thought his flirtatious ways had led him to being unfaithful – and moments when she’d adored him, and could forgive him almost anything. She’d had to accept that Jim Reilly would always have an eye for an attractive woman and a dodgy deal, and it had taken all her determination and love to keep him on the straight and narrow. Somehow, they had survived, and would soon celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and be further blessed with the birth of their first grandchild.

Peggy snuggled into her coat, warmed by the excitement of this new arrival. Anne and Martin lived in a tiny hamlet to the north of Cliffehaven, but she would be coming home to Beach View Boarding House the following day to be nearer to the doctor’s surgery and spend the last two weeks of her pregnancy with her family. Everything was prepared for this momentous occasion, right down
to the refurbishment of the old pram which had stood at the back of the shed ever since Peggy’s two boys, Bob and Charlie, had grown out of it.

She blinked away the tears that always came when she thought about her two youngest. They were down in Somerset, and although she’d managed to go and see them over Christmas and found them sprouting up like weeds and clearly relishing life on a farm, she’d found it the hardest thing ever to leave them behind and still missed them horribly.

This damned war had a lot to answer to, for not only were her boys happily growing up without her, but Anne had to watch and wait and worry over Martin, who was in charge of a Spitfire squadron; Cissy risked life and limb working on that same airbase, and Jim and Ron had discovered the far-too-tempting opportunities of the black market. And, as if she didn’t have enough to worry about, there was also the elderly Mrs Finch, the two young nurses and Rita to take care of.

Peggy watched the seagulls dip and swoop and hover, their haunting cries carried on the wind. She smiled with soft affection as she thought about her ‘chicks’. Fran and Suzy had come to live at Beach View shortly after the outbreak of war. Fran was from Ireland, and the livelier of the two, but Suzy happily accompanied her friend on their few hours away from the hospital, and they both lived life to the full, taking advantage of the numerous parties and dances laid on to entertain the sudden influx of servicemen.

Rita was a few years younger and just as lively, for if she wasn’t driving fire engines about, she was charging around on her motorbike, organising impromptu races on the abandoned dirt-track circuit at the back of the new factories. These races had become so popular among the servicemen that she’d had to limit the number of entries, but all the money she made through this enterprise was handed over to charity.

Rita was a local girl whose mother had died some years ago, and whose father had enlisted as an engineer on an airbase somewhere up north. She was one of Cissy’s friends who’d been a frequent visitor before the war, so when she’d been bombed out, it seemed only right she should make her home at Beach View.

Peggy’s oldest ‘chick’ was Mrs Finch. No one knew quite how old Cordelia was, but although she was frail and birdlike, and twittered on like a demented sparrow, she’d proved to be as stalwart and strong as the best of them. Nothing much seemed to get her down, but being as deaf as a post was a saving grace during air raids, for she could switch off her rather useless old hearing aid and snore through the whole thing to her heart’s content.

Mrs Finch was a widow and had moved into Beach View several years ago. Her sons had migrated to Canada after the First War and seemed to have forgotten her, but she’d found her niche with Peggy’s
family and had become an intrinsic part of it. With the war on and a house full of young people, she’d found new purpose in life. This sustaining discovery gave her the vim and vigour of a much younger woman, and she’d taken on some of the household chores with relish.

She adored Ron and Jim, and would often get as flustered as a young girl when they tried their Irish charm on her. But she knew blarney when she heard it, and had soon got their measure, often being one step ahead of them, her salient advice rescuing them from several close calls with the law. The girls all thought of her as a grandmother, telling her their woes as they helped unravel her knitting, treated her to a new hairdo, or took her to see the latest Hollywood musical at the cinema.

‘Yes,’ muttered Peggy, ‘we’ve all been blessed by Cordelia’s presence.’

She shivered as the chill finally got to her, and decided she’d sat here long enough. There were things to do at home if everyone was going to eat tonight. Having retrieved her bicycle, she pedalled along the seafront, the wind buffeting her and tearing at her headscarf.

The basket Ron had fixed to the handlebars shuddered as the wheels ran over the uneven surface, making her handbag and gas-mask box dance about. She eyed her handbag fretfully, hoping the surprise she’d hidden in there would survive the journey. It had been quite a feat to get it, had cost rather more
than she’d expected and would probably not be well received – but she hoped everyone would come to appreciate its benefits.

It was a steep climb from the seafront as Peggy headed towards Beach View Terrace, and she was huffing and puffing like an old steam train by the time she’d gone three blocks and reached Camden Road, which stretched off to her left.

Camden Road ran parallel to the seafront and was the flatter route home from the High Street, but now and again Peggy needed to see the sea and let the salty wind blow away the cobwebs. However, it was tougher going when the wind blew this hard, and she had to stop a minute and get her breath back.

Her gaze travelled over the few shops where she’d registered for her rations and past Ron’s favourite pub, the Anchor, to the distant bulk of the clothing factory, the fire station, and the grey stone walls of the sprawling hospital. There had once been a primary school in Camden Road where Anne had taught, but it had been flattened during a bombing raid early on in the war. Mercifully it had been at night and no one had been killed, but it had been the deciding factor when it had come to the safety of Bob and Charlie, which was why they were now living in Somerset.

Peggy took a deep breath and pushed the bicycle across the road and into Beach View Terrace. A gas explosion had destroyed the two houses at the far
end and she still found the gap they’d left quite disturbing, but the rest of the terrace of Victorian villas had survived with only a few scars to mark the enemy’s passing.

Beach View Boarding House rose three storeys above the pavement, with concrete steps shadowing the basement window as they led to a pillared portico and rather battered front door. There had once been ornate lamps at the bottom of the steps and stained-glass windows on either side of the door, but they’d been blown to smithereens during a raid. The front door was second-hand, and the only thing that had survived the blast was the brass lion’s-head knocker which she polished every morning.

Many of the windows had been reglazed and heavily taped to protect them from further blasts, but one or two of the panes had had to be boarded over. There was only so much money to spend, and it would cost a fortune to keep buying new windows when the Luftwaffe would only wreck them again.

Peggy hoisted the bike up the stairs and opened the front door. She was greeted by a delicious smell of cooking, which made her mouth water in anticipation, but as she wheeled the bike into the kitchen, it was to find it strangely deserted.

A glance out of the window told her the reason why. Ron and Mrs Finch were in the vegetable plot having an argument. Or at least, Ron was doing all
the arguing, for Mrs Finch had clearly switched off her hearing aid and was ignoring him as his face went puce and his bushy eyebrows waggled in frustration. While this was going on, Ron’s dog, Harvey, was rummaging through the compost heap to find the best and smelliest place to have an ecstatic and leisurely roll.

Peggy gave a sigh of despair that was tinged with loving acceptance. Ron and his dog were alike in many ways and rarely seen apart. Harvey was a lurcher, a shaggy-haired Bedlington–greyhound cross with a mind of his own and a prodigious talent for hunting and sniffing out anything that was buried. Ron was a disreputable, shaggy old rogue who liked nothing better than to go poaching on Lord Cliffe’s vast estate. They both seemed to relish getting as dirty as possible and couldn’t seem to understand that Peggy didn’t appreciate them tramping their muck into her house.

And yet Harvey and Ron had earned themselves quite a reputation during the past year, for not only had they rescued an injured pilot and brought him safely down from the hills during an air raid, but they had also managed to find and rescue scores of people trapped beneath their ruined homes and businesses.

Peggy chuckled as she carried the bike down into the basement where Ron and Harvey shared a bedroom next to the scullery. Harvey would probably come tearing into her nice clean kitchen stinking
of old cabbage and rotten potato peel, and Ron would follow with muddy boots, his long poaching coat stuffed with ill-gotten gains and still reeking of the two ferrets he’d once carried in one of the many inside pockets. They were both a pain in the neck, and tried her patience to the limit, but she couldn’t imagine this house without them.

She glanced into Ron’s room, saw the unmade bed, the dirty clothes piled on the floor, the guns and fishing rods leaning against the wall and the line of boots. She gave up any thought of clearing the mess today and closed the door on it all. It was bad enough the old man shared his bed with his dog, but at least he no longer had his smelly old ferrets tucked away in cages beneath her scullery sink.

After a fleeting glance into the room her two young sons had once shared, she closed the door on that too. It had merely become a hidey-hole for the rest of Ron’s clutter, and the sight of those abandoned bunk beds made her heartsick. Climbing back up the basement steps into the kitchen, she took off her coat, gloves and scarf, placed the small package on the table, and reached for her wrap-round pinafore.

Ron must have gone down to the fishing station earlier, for Mrs Finch had made one of her delicious fish pies, and the potato topping was browning nicely in the oven. Peggy put the kettle on top of the range and sat down, feeling rather out of sorts.
Perhaps the chill wind had got to her; perhaps it was the spam sandwich she’d had for lunch – or more likely, she was just overtired and feeling her age.

She lit a cigarette and, with a sigh of pleasure, took in her surroundings. She loved this room, for although it was shabby, it was the heart of her home and she wouldn’t have changed a thing. The lino was as faded and worn as the oilcloth that covered the big wooden table, and the furniture had been here since she was a child. The window was set above the stone sink and wooden draining board, and looked over the back garden to the lines of terraced villas that climbed the hill behind them.

Below the sink, a faded gingham curtain hid the bucket, dustpan, packets of soap powder and all the other paraphernalia that was needed to keep a house clean. A line of shelves held mismatched crockery; cooking pots hung over the black Kitchener range which stood in the chimney breast; and ration books, photographs, lists and general clutter filled the narrow mantelpiece below the framed photograph of the King and Queen which had been carefully cut from a magazine. The wireless stood on the chest of drawers where she kept her best linen, and two armchairs stood on either side of the range offering comfort and warmth on cold, dark winter nights.

The back door burst open and before Peggy could
shout a warning, Harvey was bounding into the room, tongue lolling, ears flapping, tail going like a windmill as he placed his great muddy paws on her knees and tried to climb onto her lap.

‘It’s nice to see you too, Harvey,’ she said as she wrinkled her nose and tried to push him off. ‘But you’re filthy and far too big to sit on my lap.’

‘Get down, you eejit dog,’ rumbled Ron as he plodded into the kitchen in his muddy wellingtons. ‘Is it stupid you are? You’ll flatten Peggy, so you will.’

Harvey took no notice and continued to clamber, his tongue lapping at Peggy’s face and hands as she tried desperately to get rid of him.

‘Harvey!’ shouted Ron. ‘Will ye listen? Down. Now.’