Authors: Carol Rivers
But he took her hands. ‘Pearl . . . please.’ His voice was weary. ‘Just do as I say for once. Sit by the fire.’
Reluctantly she obeyed. Her hair was all over the place and her teeth needed brushing. No wonder he didn’t want to cuddle her! Quickly she pinched her cheeks in the mirror.
He soon appeared with two cups of tea. A great wave of love enveloped her. Why did they have to quarrel?
Placing wood on the fire he stood up slowly. ‘We need to talk, Pearl.’
‘We can talk in bed.’
He sighed. ‘Before I know it, you’ll have sent everything else out of me brain.’
‘Jim, I know I spend too much and I’m selfish and I ain’t a good cook, but I can change—’
‘Pearl, it’s none of those things,’ he cut her short. ‘I don’t care how much you spend or where you spend it. And food is the last of me worries.’ He sat heavily on the chair. ‘As I’ve said, I’ve been walking all night, thinking things through.’
‘You could have thought them through here,’ she pouted.
‘We’d have ended up in bed.’
‘Is that such a bad thing?’
‘No, course not,’ he shrugged, raking a hand through his hair. ‘When we make love it’s wonderful. There ain’t nothing like it, in my book. You’re a beautiful woman and I can’t get enough of you. You’ve got this, like, knack for good taste, like the way you look – you’re always turned out top notch. And this place, you’ve done it up real nice, like you see on the films, even with your little touches, but . . . but . . .’
‘But what?’ Pearl had a sinking feeling. What had he been hiding?
‘There are things in a marriage that are just as important as sex. Like talking – and sharing.’
‘I thought we did all that.’ She gazed into his eyes. ‘I love you, Jim. I try me best.’
‘Pearl, answer me honestly.’ He held her hands. ‘Did you know how serious your sister is about Winters?’
Pearl gave a hesitant shrug. ‘What do you mean by serious?’
‘I went round to Roper’s Way this morning to see if Ruby got home all right. Your parents had just left for church. I wanted to apologize for my outburst. You know what she said? She said it was none of my business and that she had no intention of giving him up.’
‘I only knew about them writing, I swear it.’
‘You knew about them writing?’
The sinking feeling came back as she nodded.
‘Just look what it’s led to,’ he burst out. ‘Do you really want to see your sister go the same way as Gladys?’
‘Jim, she’d never kill herself.’
‘How do you know?’ His eyes were hard. ‘Are you willing to take the chance?’
‘That’s not a nice thing to say.’
‘And Winters ain’t a nice bloke. I told you what he did to Danny and Gladys. He’s responsible for the ending of a life that should have been lived much longer. My God, Pearl, isn’t that proof enough?’ When she didn’t answer, he drew back. ‘Or is there more to this than meets the eye? Something I don’t know about?’
‘Course not,’ she protested, going scarlet. ‘What could there be?’
‘You knew him once, at the club.’
Her heart gave a guilty lurch. Jim had never put these questions to her before. He was like a different person, as though he distrusted her. ‘You sound like you’re jealous,’ she flung back.
‘Jealous?’ he repeated, looking her intently in the eye. ‘Maybe I am. Have I got reason to be?’
‘Jim, that’s another rotten thing to say.’
He stood up, staring at her as though he was searching her face for an answer. ‘I don’t know . . . I don’t know,’ he murmured, pushing his hands in his pockets. ‘I just can’t put me finger on it. Something’s not right . . . there’s something I don’t understand. Why he’s come back. It’s just too much of a coincidence.’
If she told him
everything
now – admitted to the truth – she was sure she would lose him. He would never want her after what she’d done with Ricky.
‘You’re accusing me,’ she heard herself bravely saying, ‘but what about
you?
I don’t go on to you about all these girlfriends you’ve had.’
He tilted his head. ‘What girlfriends?’
‘Blackie said you were a bit of a lad once.’
He shrugged. ‘So what? I’ve always told you the truth. The girls before you meant nothing. All young blokes sow their wild oats.’
‘You say you’ve always told me the truth. But what about the enlistment board?’ she demanded, just remembering what Blackie had said.
‘Who said about that?’
‘Blackie,’ she replied, pleased to see that going on the attack had worked. But her satisfaction was short-lived as he threw the last piece of wood on the fire.
‘I was going to tell you after the dance.’
The words filled her with terror. ‘Oh God, Jim, no!’
He kept his eyes averted. ‘I’m sorry, Pearl.’
It was then the bottom of her world really did fall out as she realized that, like Blackie, he had enlisted.
Pearl sat in the chair, her arms clutched around herself. Her heart had only just stopped pounding. She could hear the rattle of china in the kitchen and feel the warmth of the fire. The newspapers were in the rack by the hearth, the clock ticked on the mantel next to the ashtray, a souvenir from Margate. Everything was as normal in their love nest, but it wouldn’t ever be the same again.
Jim was leaving in a week. Seven days. Packing his bags and leaving. Well, she wouldn’t let him go. They couldn’t take him away from her, whoever
they
were.
‘Drink this.’ Jim’s tone was tender. He was trying to make amends. But nothing was going to mend this – unless he said he wouldn’t go.
‘I don’t want it.’
‘Come on, love, for my sake.’ He made her take the hot drink. The cup rattled in the saucer.
‘Are you cold?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll get a blanket.’
‘Jim, a blanket ain’t gonna do any good. You’ve just told me you’ve enlisted. That behind my back you had it all planned.’
‘It was the
Ark Royal
that did it.’
‘The
Ark Royal
?’ She had thought it odd that Jim hadn’t gone on about the sinking. But as they’d made passionate love, she’d assumed that he didn’t want to upset her. ‘So you’ve been keeping this secret since then?’
‘Not secret. Not like that.’
‘It’s all right for you to accuse me of living in a fantasy world. But this takes some beating. I suppose you’d have said goodbye the night before you left?’
‘I told you, I was going to after the dance. I didn’t want to spoil your fun.’
Pearl’s eyes widened. ‘But you walked out on me anyway!’
‘I was angry. Upset.’
‘And you don’t think I’d be upset?’ Pearl demanded. She could hardly contain herself. She felt indignant, angry and terrified. No matter how she carried on, he seemed to have decided.
He sat down in the armchair. ‘Let me explain.’
‘I wish you would.’
‘Me and Blackie were interviewed along with another two blokes at the council. Me and Blackie got picked.’
‘But Blackie only mends engines!’
‘He’s a top-notch mechanic, love.’
‘And I suppose you’re a top-notch engineer?’
‘Engineering and mechanics is what the government is interested in at this moment. I’m not allowed to know the details, but I can tell you where I’m to be trained.’
‘Trained?’ she repeated in a daze. ‘So you really are going?’
‘It’s my duty.’
‘What about your duty to me?’ she burst out. ‘Or have you forgotten we was only married in June.’
Once more he was beside her, comforting her. ‘Come on now, gel, buck up.’
‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded. ‘Tell them you’ve changed your mind.’
‘I can’t do that.’
She began to cry.
‘Come here . . .’ He tried to hold her but she pushed him away. ‘Don’t do this, sweetheart.’
‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed.
He spread his fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck. ‘Do you remember in August of last year, when they bombed the factories at Luton?’
Pearl shrugged. ‘S’pose I do. What’s that got to do with us?’
‘It was just before the Blitz. They used to make cars at the Vauxhall factory but now it’s tanks. Special ones, called the Churchill.’
‘Jim, I—’
‘Listen a minute. I’m trying to explain. See, Britain was so short of tanks after Dunkirk – we only had about a hundred left – that Winnie goes to Vauxhall and asks them to dream up a new one. Well, that’s just what they did. The first batch are out next month. The rub is, we’ve got to account for the terrain they cover. The desert ain’t all sand dunes like you see at the flicks; it’s rocky as well. That’s where the engineering comes in, creating ways for our tanks to get through.’
‘Desert? Do you mean in Africa?’ she screeched.
‘I don’t know exactly. But that’s my guess.’
‘All that sand!’ she gasped. ‘You didn’t even like it at Margate.’
He smiled. ‘I’ll have to get used to it, won’t I?’
She could see the fair hairs on his knuckles. She loved his hands so much. She didn’t want to think of a gun in them. ‘But Africa’s thousands of miles away,’ was all she could think of to say.
‘And Africa is very important to us,’ he said gently. ‘The Axis forces have got Western Europe tucked up and now they’re gonna try for the Suez Canal. This will give them your old carrot blanche to the oil fields. If they get these, they’ll starve us of oil. Not to mention cut us off from India, part of the British Empire.’
Pearl was too ashamed to admit that she didn’t know much about oil or the Suez Canal. All that was important was Jim.
‘So you’re really going?’ she whimpered.
‘Pearl,
think
, love. If Britain don’t go out to meet the war, it will come to us. We’ve fought off one invasion. But another? Could we do it again? And at what cost?’ He looked into her eyes and that was her undoing. The tears overcame her anger. He wrapped her in his arms. She knew she couldn’t change his mind. The war now had them in its grip.
Pearl sat in the front room of her parents’ house. She’d called in after work, needing to talk. Em had been very kind and listened to her troubles but now she needed her mum and dad. There were two days before the 29th and Pearl hadn’t slept a wink.
‘I don’t suppose he had a choice, love,’ said her mother calmly. ‘You can’t be angry with him.’
‘But he
wants
to go.’
‘He doesn’t want to leave you, obviously,’ reasoned her father, folding up the newspaper and sticking it down the side of his chair. ‘A man’s got his duty to do.’
‘But he was doing it at the council,’ Pearl protested. Everyone saw Jim’s point of view and not hers.
‘I read all about them new tanks,’ her father said. ‘Not details, of course – no, they don’t give those. But they sound pretty formidable. And Jim knows his onions when it comes to engineering.’
Ruby sat beside her. ‘I’m sorry, Pearl.’ She seemed to be the only one to understand.
‘I won’t let him go,’ Pearl said fiercely. ‘I’ll think of something to stop him!’
‘Now, now, ducks,’ reproved Amy as she got up from her chair and closed the heavy curtains. ‘There’s no use getting cross and wasting your energy. Jim has done what he thinks best and you must come to terms with it. If your father had gone into the services in the last war, I would have had to do the same.’
Pearl sighed, knowing that was true. Her dad’s job, making and fitting parts for ships, had kept him at home in the Great War. But she had no doubt that if he’d had to go away, her mum wouldn’t have been the baby her daughter was.
‘You’re going to be ill if you carry on like this,’ Ruby said quietly. ‘I’ve never seen you without make-up on before.’
‘I keep crying it off.’
‘You don’t ever cry.’
‘I do now. I hope it will make Jim change his mind.’
Ruby grinned. ‘That’s just like you.’
‘Is Jim calling by before he goes?’ asked her mother, retying the straps of her pinny round her waist. ‘Your dad and me would like to wish him well.’
Pearl smiled weakly. ‘Yes, after he’s seen his mother.’
‘How has she taken it?’ Amy enquired, eyebrows raised.
‘I tried to talk to her yesterday,’ Pearl sighed. ‘I said I’d go round just the same whilst Jim’s away. That she could rely on me for the shopping and I’d do the cleaning and even the washing if she wanted. But all I got was that it’s my fault he’s going. A real wife would have known how to keep her husband at home.’
‘The old witch!’ cried Ruby, but Amy put up her hand.
‘She was just upset, I expect.’
‘But why should she blame Pearl?’ demanded Ruby angrily.
‘Don’t take it personally, love,’ said Syd. ‘She’ll come round.’
‘I don’t know, Dad.’
‘Did you tell Jim?’ asked her mother with a frown.