Connie’s table companion leaned over and squeezed Eva’s hand. ‘Mustn’t grumble, ducks. Mustn’t grumble.’
Someone in the café had a piano accordion. He squeezed the box and one by one, the songs, especially the one penned during the war to end all wars, the same one which had meant so much to the country for the past five years, filled the air.
‘Pack up your troubles …’
Yes, that’s what the whole world wanted but for the first time that day, Connie felt uncomfortable. The war might be over but people like Eva had to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. Her mind was full of unanswered questions. How did Eva’s husband die? Was it really only a couple of weeks after they’d been married?
‘What’s the use of worrying?
It never was worthwhile …’
Of course, she couldn’t ask. She hardly knew the girl and it seemed far too intrusive.
‘Pack up your troubles in an old kit bag and
Smile, smile, smile …’
they sang.
Connie could hardly bear it.
All at once, Queenie bustled in from the kitchen and put two plates of meat and veg pie, mash and gravy in front of them. Despite the fact that Connie had to search for a piece of meat in her pie, it was hot, delicious and very welcome.
‘I’m sorry about your husband,’ said Connie as Queenie went off to get them both a cup of tea. Her remark felt lame but she felt she had to say
something
.
‘You weren’t to know,’ said Eva.
Connie smiled awkwardly and Eva looked away. ‘Not much to say really,’ Eva said, addressing the brick wall. ‘We met in Hyde Park, got married by special licence and he was killed six weeks later.’
Connie stopped eating. ‘But I thought …’ She glanced sideways at Mrs Arkwright who was stubbing out a cigarette. Two weeks or six, it was still terrible. ‘God, Eva, that’s awful.’
Eva ran her fingers through her shoulder-length blonde hair and shrugged her shoulders. ‘It happens.’
She’d only known the girl for a few hours but Connie wasn’t fooled. She might be trying to sound tough but Connie could see that Eva’s eyes had misted over. Connie had obviously reopened an old wound and now she didn’t know what to say. Rescue came once more in the form of Eva’s mother-in-law who reappeared with the tea. Planting a kiss on the top of Eva’s head she said to Connie, ‘Isn’t she lovely? My Dermid picked a real gem. Like a daughter to me she is.’
Connie nodded vigorously and embarrassed, Eva shooed her away with, ‘Get away with you, Queenie.’
‘Now that it’s all over, my gal,’ said Queenie earnestly, ‘you mind you keep in touch.’
‘Of course I will,’ said Eva, looking up and squeezing her hand.
As they finished their meal the man with the accordion struck up ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’
and they all sang along. Or at least, Connie mouthed the words. Her throat was too tight with emotion to sing but the jolly songs had the others dancing and clapping and the more poignant ones brought a sentimental tear to the eye.
‘I presume you’ve got a SOP,’ said Eva. ‘If you need a place to sleep, I’m sure Queenie will put us up, won’t you Queenie?’
‘’Course I can,’ smiled Queenie.
Mrs Arkwright frowned. ‘What’s a SOP?’
‘Sleeping Out Pass,’ laughed Eva.
Connie’s jaw dropped and she gasped in horror. ‘Oh Lord, no! Since we started double summer time, these long light evenings make such a difference. Whatever’s the time?’
‘Eight forty-five.’
‘Oh hell,’ cried Connie grabbing her handbag from the floor. ‘I never gave it a thought. I haven’t even got a late pass and I’ve got to be in by ten.’
‘Where are you billeted?’ asked Eva.
‘Hendon. Can you tell me how to get to the nearest tube station? I shall be all right once I get there.’
‘Doug is going near there,’ said Queenie balancing the empty plates up her arm. ‘He’ll be here in a minute. He can take you in the pig van if you like.’
Connie raised an eyebrow. ‘Pig van?’
‘He collects pig food from all the restaurants around here,’ said Queenie. ‘If you don’t mind the smell, I’m sure he’d give you a lift.’
Connie looked at Eva and they laughed. It was hardly ideal but at least she had the chance to be back to the camp on time.
Connie stood to go. ‘Thanks Eva,’ she said giving her an affectionate hug. ‘I’ve had a wonderful day.’
‘Me too,’ said Eva. ‘We must keep in touch.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Connie.
Her new friend purloined two pieces of paper and gave one to Connie. ‘I’ve no idea where I’ll be when I get demobbed,’ she said, ‘so I’ll give you my mother’s address. She’ll always know where I am.’
‘That’ll be good,’ said Connie writing her own name and address down. ‘I guess it won’t be too hard to meet up. You started to tell me that we lived near each other.’
‘I come from Durrington,’ said Eva handing her details over to Connie. ‘It’s near Worthing.’
‘I know where that is,’ Connie smiled.
Queenie leaned over the counter and interrupted them. ‘Doug’s here, darlin’.’
‘Thanks Queenie,’ said Eva.
‘I’ll tell him you’ll be out in a minute, shall I?’
‘Thanks Queenie,’ said Eva once more. Her mother-in-law went out through the kitchen door.
‘My folks live in Goring,’ Connie smiled. ‘That’s a small village the other side of Worthing.’ She handed Eva her slip of paper and glanced down at the name and address Eva had written down.
Beside her, her new friend gasped. ‘Connie Dixon? You’re not one of the Dixons from Belvedere Nurseries, are you?’
‘Yes,’ said Connie. She stared disbelievingly at the address Eva had just given her. Mrs Vi Maxwell, Durrington Hill. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She’d spent the day with a girl her family heartily disapproved of. ‘When we met,’ she accused, ‘you said your name was O’Hara.’
‘Of course,’ said Eva, tossing her head defiantly. ‘That’s my married name. I was born a Maxwell, and I’m proud of it.’
‘I had no idea,’ said Connie quietly.
‘I can’t quite believe it either,’ said Eva. ‘And we’ve had such a lovely day.’
Connie nodded. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Tell you one thing,’ said Eva. ‘I don’t think my mother would be too happy if you turned up on the doorstep.’
Connie’s heart began to bump but she wasn’t sure if she was angry or deeply offended. How could this girl be a Maxwell? She had been so nice. ‘After what your family did to mine …’ she began.
‘After what
my
family did?’ Eva retorted. ‘I think you’ll find the boot is on the other foot.’
‘Now hang on a minute,’ said Connie, her hand on her hip. ‘I don’t want to get into a fight but get your facts straight first.’
They glared at each other, their jaws jutting.
‘What’s up with you two?’ said Queenie, reappearing in the café. ‘You both look as if you lost half a crown and found a tanner.’
‘She’s been buttering up to me all day and it turns out that she’s a bloody Dixon,’ spat Eva. She turned away and Connie thought she heard her mutter, ‘Cow.’
Connie was livid. ‘It’s hardly surprising,’ she said to Eva’s receding back, ‘that the Dixons and the Maxwells have nothing to do with each other, especially when one of them is so bloomin’ rude.’
Queenie O’Hara looked helplessly from one girl to the other. She seemed confused. ‘I don’t understand. A minute ago you two were best friends. How come things have changed so quickly?’
Connie recovered herself. ‘Buttering up to you all day? What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know perfectly well what it means,’ Eva countered huffily. ‘My folks would have leathered me with a strap, if I’d have had anything to do with the Dixons.’
‘Would they really?’ said Connie putting her nose in the air. ‘Well, mine would do no such thing. I’m lucky enough to come from a
loving
family.’
‘If I had known you were a Dixon, I never would have invited you here,’ cried Eva.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Connie. ‘If I had known you were a Maxwell, I would never have come!’
‘Girls, girls,’ cried Queenie, ‘don’t let this spoil a lovely day. For Gowd’s sake, you’re like a couple of bickering schoolkids. Doug has to get going and you have to say your goodbyes.’
‘Goodbye,’ Eva snapped, carefully avoiding Connie’s eye.
Connie put her nose in the air. ‘Goodbye.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Queenie, shaking her head. ‘Here we are with the first day of peace and you two are at war. Whatever it is, can’t you bury the hatchet?’
‘After what her family did to mine? No, I can’t,’ said Eva. ‘Don’t keep Doug and the
pig
van waiting, Connie.’ And with that she swept out of the room.
Furious, Connie followed Queenie through the kitchen and out of the back door. Her stomach was in knots. She had really liked Eva and she’d had more fun today than she’d had in a month of Sundays but Eva was a Maxwell. Her emphasis on the word
pig
hadn’t gone unnoticed either. For a time back there, she had seemed really nice. She could have fooled anyone with that dear friend act she’d put on. Ah well, at least Eva had shown her true colours before it was too late and besides, Connie knew only too well that if she stayed friends with a Maxwell, there would be hell to pay. Hadn’t she been brought up with her great aunt’s stories about the Maxwells? Cheats, liars and vagabonds, the lot of them, according to Ga.
When Queenie hugged her before she climbed into the passenger side of the lorry, Connie hugged her back. It wasn’t Queenie’s fault and her full stomach reminded her that she had been more than generous. Doug turned and gave her a toothless smile as she sat down. He turned out to be a fifty-something in a greasy looking flat cap and leather jerkin.
‘Straight over to Hendon now, Doug,’ said Queenie, closing the passenger door. ‘The girl has to be back by ten.’
‘Right you are, missus,’ said Doug, starting the engine.
As the lorry moved off, Connie caught a glimpse of Eva’s pale face at an upstairs window before she let the curtain drop. At the same moment, Connie screwed up the piece of paper with Eva’s name and address on it and deliberately dropped it out of the van. Queenie’s eyes met hers and Connie felt her cheeks flame. Thankfully, that second, Doug put his foot on the throttle and the van lurched forward.
Doug wasn’t very talkative and Connie was too upset to make much conversation. What a perfectly rotten end to a lovely day. It had started out disappointingly because Emmett couldn’t be with her, but from the moment they had paddled in the fountain, she had had a wonderful time. When Eva had said her family came from Worthing, Connie had no idea of the bombshell that was to come. Her mind drifted back over the years. Now that she came to think about it, her great aunt had never been that specific about the rift between the two families. In fact, Connie hardly knew anything about the Maxwell family, but whenever Ga spoke of them, the contempt in which she held them was written all over her face. She never had a good word to say and when Ga voiced an opinion, no one dared argue. Connie had grown up believing that the Maxwells were dishonest, conniving, deceitful wretches who were to be avoided altogether. Eva was the first Maxwell Connie had ever spoken to and look how nasty she had been when she’d found out who Connie was. She’d certainly shown her true colours, hadn’t she? Ah well, good riddance to bad rubbish.
The cab smelled musty and a bit like a compost heap on a sunny day. After a while it made her feel queasy so Connie was more than relieved to see the gates of her camp looming out of the darkness. She thanked Doug profusely and walked the few hundred yards to the sentry post. She fancied that the guard wrinkled his nose as she walked by and her only thought was to have a good strip-down wash or if she was lucky, a small bath before lights out.
‘Connie! There you are,’ Rene sounded really pleased to see her as she walked in their Nissen hut. ‘Where did you and Eva get to? We looked everywhere for you both but you’d completely disappeared. I’m so sorry. Did you have a terrible time? I mean, you don’t know London at all, do you? Oh, I feel perfectly dreadful about it. How on earth did you get home?’
‘If you’ll let me get a word in edgeways,’ Connie laughed as she threw her bag over her iron bedstead, ‘I’ll tell you.’
As Rene sat on the bed beside her, Connie told her some of what had happened. Listening to her friend’s abject apologies, Connie felt a twinge of guilt. She’d been having such a good time, she hadn’t given Rene and Barbara a moment’s thought since they’d lost sight of each other on The Mall. ‘Please don’t worry,’ she smiled as Rene apologised yet again. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I had a great time anyway.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying so,’ said Rene, pulling a face, ‘you don’t smell too good.’
‘Neither would you if you’d sat in that awful van,’ Connie laughed. ‘Let me go to the bathroom.’
Sitting in the regulation five inches of water, Connie sponged away the smell of the pig food, but somehow she didn’t feel clean. She’d already gone over some of the things Eva had said to her, and now she was remembering the unkind things she had said in return. She shouldn’t have been so sharp with her. After all, Eva was a war widow and being with her mother-in-law again had obviously brought back some painful memories. Hadn’t she suffered enough?
She climbed out of the bath and towelled herself dry. What could she do about it? The Dixons and the Maxwells had been at loggerheads for donkey’s years. She pulled the plug and watched the dirty water swirl around the plughole before disappearing. Wrapping herself in her dressing gown, Connie sighed. There were some stinks that needed a lot more than soap and water to wash them away. Ah well, it was done and dusted as far as she and Eva were concerned. She’d never see her again anyway.
The dream came in the early hours. It was one of those strange moments when you are asleep and you know it’s only a dream and yet you are powerless to wake yourself up. She struggled to make sense of it but as the moving forms in front of her grew darker, the overwhelming fear reached panic proportions. The tap-tapping of the cigarette on that case grew louder.
Wake up, Connie. Wake up.
Oh God, he was coming for her. Her eyes locked onto his and she couldn’t get the door shut. The door … the door … Now he was inside the room … coming closer and closer. She could smell his breath, feel his hand pinning her shoulders down.
Connie, wake up.
She was screaming but no sound came from her lips. His rasping voice filled her ears.
You’ll like it …
He opened his mouth and beyond his yellow teeth she saw his fat, pulsating tongue. She felt that if he came any closer, he would devour her whole. The weight of his body suffocated her. She thrashed her arms to push him away and the rushing sound in her ears grew louder.