Chapter Nineteen

Billy was ignoring me. Not nastily or obviously, but he was definitely ignoring me.

I knew it was because he’d nearly made a pass at me. Oh God, I would love to know what would have happened next if Davy hadn’t come along. Would we have gone to the pub? For a walk? Would he have told me what he thought of me? He had already been saying nice things …

But the moment – if moment it had been – had definitely passed. And Billy was clearly regretting the little bit he had said. He hardly spoke to me. And when he did, it was brisk and businesslike. Perfectly polite, but he was definitely avoiding eye contact. Yet sometimes, I knew he was looking at me across the office. I could feel his eyes on me. If I turned around, I’d see a tiny movement just out of eye range, but Billy would be bent over his typewriter, or the diary, or his notebook.

It was wonderful that he cared, that he felt the same as I did. But he wasn’t going to do anything about it. I knew he wanted to, but he wouldn’t, because he was a married man, a family man.

I admired him for that. Loved him even more. I loved his loyalty to his children. I loved the way he spent time with them, teaching them things. He didn’t try and pretend he was a kid too, fooling around with them. He was their father and he took that seriously.

Most of all, though, I loved him for his loyalty to Carol. I knew he was falling for me, but he was trying hard not to, because of his loyalty to his wife. I genuinely admired him for that – even if it made me feel utterly miserable.

I was sitting in the newsroom, typing up a very dull story about Bob-a-Job week (sending small boys to knock on doors offering their services. Paedo fantasy or what?) and trying not to put my head down on the typewriter and weep, when young George came bouncing in.

‘All ready for Thursday then, Rosie?’ he asked happily, to a chorus of comments from the men in the room.

Word had got around about the wedding and had stunned everybody, hardly surprising since George and Peggy had never even been out together. Marje had guessed the story but I knew I could trust her to say nothing, so everyone presumed Peggy’s baby was George’s, which meant he got all the sympathy – and the rude comments.

‘Hey George, hear you been paddling without your boots on!’ yelled one of the young messengers walking past the door.

George took it all, responded merely by grinning. He really did seem so pleased to be marrying Peggy. I hoped she’d make him happy.

It was a special licence job. Bit of a rushed do.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Brown with her mouth full of pins that evening, ‘it’s not as though we’re inviting anybody. We haven’t got much to organise.’ She was busy trying to alter a dress for Peggy to wear, letting out seams, moving buttons. ‘It’s not the way I thought my only daughter would be getting married. Not the way at all.’

‘My friend Kate had a lovely dress when she got married, even though she was six months pregnant,’ I said chattily as I brought them a tray of tea. ‘You can get nice posh maternity dresses, even wedding dresses.’

Mrs Brown nearly choked. ‘I never heard of such a thing! Maternity wedding dresses! Well really!’

I could have pointed out that Peggy was far from the only girl in need of such a thing, but guessed I’d be wasting my breath.

The wedding was going to be extremely quiet, in the register office. Just the Browns and George’s mum, and George’s friend Derek as best man. It all seemed very hole in the corner to me, not exactly a celebration.

‘There!’ Mrs Brown handed the dress to Peggy, who slipped it on. To be fair, her mother had done a good job. The dress, a pale silk, looked dressy and flattering.

‘What are you going to wear on top?’

‘I don’t know. My coat I suppose.’

Oh dear. Her coat was fine, but it was very fitted. It was some time since she’d been able to do it up.

‘There’s no point in buying anything new just for the day,’ snapped Mrs Brown. ‘You’ve got plenty of other things you’ll need to spend your money on.’

Which gave me an idea …

In the window of Adcocks, I had spotted a very nice jacket. I had fancied it for myself but dismissed it as I had nothing really to wear it with. It was a mid colour blue, short, loose and fastened with one huge button. It was young and fun. It would, I thought, go perfectly with Peggy’s let-out dress, be fashionable but yet would fit nicely over the burgeoning bump, and I wanted to buy it for her.

I would have liked her to have come with me to choose it and try it on, but until the wedding, Peggy was practically in purdah, hardly allowed out until she had that wedding ring on her finger and was respectable again. So I went back to Adcocks and faced Frosty Face and tried the jacket on. It was – as Frosty Face pointed out – a bit tight across the shoulders for me, but Peggy was narrower there than I was, so that would be fine. And it was plenty big enough in the middle to flow over the bump. So I forked out a week’s wages for it, and took it home.

Janice was sitting at the kitchen table with her homework (railways of Canada; functions of the lungs). The room smelt of the onions in the corned beef hash bubbling on the top of the range for supper. Peggy was sitting in her dad’s chair, sewing, surrounded by huge swathes of old sheets, much patched and darned. She looked tense and tired, not a bit like a bride only days before her wedding.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Making cot sheets. These are all Mother’s old sheets that she was keeping for tea towels, but I think I can manage to cut a few cot sheets out of them.’

‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘are cot sheets that expensive to buy?’

Peggy laughed. ‘You don’t buy cot sheets. What a waste of money that would be. Mind you, I think I’ll be hemming sheets in my sleep. What have you got there?’

I pushed the old sheets out of the way and placed the big box ceremoniously on the table.

‘For you.’

‘For me?’

‘Yes. Open it.’ I grinned and Peggy giggled and looked years younger. She stuck her needle carefully into the small cot sheet, put it down on the table, stood up wiping the stray bits of cotton off her, and picked up the box.

‘It’s from Adcocks!’

‘Yes.’ Peggy unfastened the string and opened the box to reveal a cloud of tissue paper. She removed it carefully, putting it on the table to be folded and used again.

‘Oh! It’s a jacket!’

‘Yes, it’s a jacket. What’s more, it’s a jacket for you to wear on your wedding day. I just hope the colour’s right.’

Peggy carefully took the jacket out of the tissue paper and looked at it. Oh God, I thought, she doesn’t like it … Quite the opposite. ‘It’s beautiful!’ she said.

‘Try it on.’

Even over the old jumper and shapeless skirt she was wearing, the jacket looked good. We took it upstairs and tried it against the dress.

‘It goes perfectly,’ said Janice, who had followed us up.

Janice stroked the jacket and looked in admiration at the big button, the silky lining. ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’ she said, almost in awe. ‘Very special.’

‘Here Janice, you try it on for a second,’ said Peggy, and popped it over Janice’s scraggy gymslip and threadbare cardigan, where it hung like a clown’s coat. Janice looked at herself in the mirror and her eyes widened. Her hands, I noticed, were spotlessly clean and her nails looked pink and cared for. She’d soon have her nail varnish from Peggy.

‘It would be lovely to have clothes like this all the time. It would be like a fairy tale, wouldn’t it?’ said Janice. After another long look, she solemnly handed the jacket back to Peggy, who was nearly in tears.

‘Oh Rosie, I’ve never had anything as posh as this. It must have cost a fortune. Thank you.’

‘It’s your wedding day. You deserve to have something new. It’s a special day.’

‘Yes it is, isn’t it?’ she said, looking determined. ‘It’s the start of my new life. With George. It will be a good life, Rosie. I promise I’ll do my best. It will be worth celebrating.’

Mr Brown obviously thought so too. He came home later and said he’d booked a table at The Fleece for us all after the ceremony.

‘But I was just going to do something for us here,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘It’s our only daughter’s wedding. We’ll do it properly, or at least as properly as we can,’ he said firmly.

We could have walked to the register office, but Mr Brown insisted on a car to take us. When Peggy came downstairs in the altered dress and the new jacket, he walked towards her and wrapped her in his arms. ‘My little girl,’ he said, ‘you look lovely.’

She did too. Very smart. Though I say it myself, the jacket was a triumph. I was so pleased. Best of all – from Mrs Brown’s point of view – was that you couldn’t really see that Peggy was pregnant, especially when she held her bouquet in front of her.

‘Something old, something new – that’s the dress and jacket,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Something borrowed. Something borrowed! Quick, Peg, borrow something.’

‘Here,’ I said quickly, ‘borrow my hanky!’ It was one of the little lace ones I’d found in the trunk the day I arrived.

‘Thanks, Rosie. Now I’ve got everything I need to bring me luck.’ She tucked it into her pocket.

‘And the something blue is my dress and jacket again. And,’ she whispered, almost giggling, ‘my new slip.’

With that the car arrived and we all bundled into it quickly, while the neighbours peered out of their windows or stood on the doorsteps waving, ‘Good luck, girl!’

The register office wasn’t really a register office, it was just part of a solicitor’s office, with a big old-fashioned desk and chairs and rows of leather-bound books. But they’d done their best with it. It smelt of polish and there were vases of flowers on the windowsills. George had a new suit, one which fitted, unlike the one he wore to work. He looked nervous, but when Peggy walked in his face lit up.

And so began the ceremony to unite Margaret Elizabeth Brown and George Arthur Turnbull. I realised I hadn’t known what George’s surname was. Turnbull. George Turn-bull. So officially, Peggy would now be Margaret Turnbull.

Margaret Turnbull … Margaret Turnbull … The name niggled away in my brain. It meant something. There was something about that name that I should recognise …

The ceremony was brief. With a bit of handshaking and congratulations, it was all over and we were out in the street again.

‘Come on then, Mr and Mrs Turnbull,’ said Derek, the best man, a pleasant-faced young man with slicked-back hair and a cheerful grin. ‘Time for the first drink of your married life!’ and he led the way the fifty yards or so to The Fleece. It was as we were walking into the lounge that I remembered.

Margaret Turnbull.

She was the woman I’d been on my way to interview when I’d fainted and had landed in the Browns’ house. That had been the start of these weird weeks, the start of my trip back in time. I looked at Peggy, smiling now, looking happy, young and glowing. I remembered that brief impression I had of an old lady getting up from her chair to come and answer the front door.

‘I say! Are you all right?’

Derek was looking at me anxiously.

‘Sit down!’ Mrs Brown commanded. I sank into one of the armchairs by the fire. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet. Frank! Get Rosie a brandy!’

The brandy hit my system and I could feel its warmth spreading through me. Margaret Turnbull. Peggy. It was too much of a coincidence. My head filled with fog and cotton wool as I tried to work it out. Whatever it was, this wasn’t the time and place to think about it.

The brandy and the fire did the trick. Well, they didn’t really, but enough to bring some colour back to my cheeks and enable me to join in with what was going on. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin George and Peggy’s wedding day.

‘That’s better!’ said Mrs Brown approvingly.

Peggy was laughing. ‘You all right, Rosie? Not going to have to plan another wedding are we …’

Everyone laughed with her. And somehow the day turned into a party. We were in an alcove off the big dining room so had a certain amount of privacy from the business men and old ladies enjoying their lunch. Just as well. George’s mum got quite tiddly on a couple of glasses of sherry. She was a nice old dear. Confided in me that she was very worried about George marrying so suddenly, but she could see that Peggy came from a decent family.

There was a small heap of cards and telegrams and after the pudding, Derek stood up and read these out. The lads from work had sent a card saying, ‘We never knew you had it in you!’ and Stephen from Cyprus had telegrammed, ‘May all your troubles be little ones!’ Both of which caused huge hilarity.

I remembered Peggy slumped in the wet grass down by Friars’ Mill, remembered the deadly atmosphere in the house afterwards and couldn’t really see the joke. But the others did, so that was all right.

There was a collection of cards from friends of George and Peggy’s, including a very nice one that said ‘Wishing you both every happiness, with best wishes, Lenny’, which made everyone go ‘Aah’ and Mrs Brown to say, ‘You know I thought he was going to be the one.’ Mr Brown and George just exchanged glances and Mr Brown made a funny face, which meant that he exactly got the measure of Lenny.

There were cards from the girls at work, from Peggy’s friends and from Janice’s mother.

‘Oh that’s nice,’ said Peggy, ‘very thoughtful.’

The last card looked big and fat and expensive. ‘This looks a posh one,’ said Derek cheerfully, tugging it open.

A shower of notes cascaded onto the linen tablecloth, drifting onto the uncleared plates and bowls, piling up against the glasses. Mrs Brown gathered them up.

‘There’s a hundred pounds here! A hundred pounds! I’ve never seen so much money.’ Her eyes were wide with shock.

‘Who’s it from?’ asked George’s mum, though the rest of us knew.

‘With all good wishes, Richard Henfield.’

There was a small silence.

‘I don’t want his money,’ said Peggy quietly.

‘Oh yes you do, my girl,’ said her mother. ‘You can buy a lot of baby things with a hundred pounds.’

‘Or it can go towards the university fees,’ I said merrily.

‘University fees?’ George’s mum was gawping at me.

‘Why not?’ asked George cheerfully, putting his arm around Peggy. ‘Our baby will go to university if he wants. Or she … A student with a briefcase and a gown and one of those long stripy scarves.’

Everyone laughed and the party mood was restored.

‘That Mr Henfield must have thought a lot of Peggy,’ whispered George’s mum to me.

‘Oh yes,’ I whispered back. ‘She was such a good secretary. He’s going to be lost without her.’

If still suspicious, George’s mum at least looked mollified.

‘Twenty-six,’ she said, looking at Peggy. ‘That’s how old I was when I was widowed.’ She was in danger of getting maudlin.

‘Well don’t say that too loudly!’

‘No love, I won’t. But it will be nice to have a baby in the house. I’m looking forward to that. I’m glad they decided to come and live with me. I wouldn’t like to be on my own. Be better when we move, mind.’

I remembered that George’s house was in the line of the new bypass. They too had been offered a house at The Meadows. Sometimes it seems as if the whole town was moving up there. I was also doing my sums. If George’s dad died at Dunkirk when his mum was twenty-six, then she’d be, gosh only about forty-two. And I’d thought she was about sixty …

The head waiter was bustling towards us with a stand, which he placed alongside the table. Next, he came with a bucket full of ice and a bottle.

‘Your wine, sir,’ he said to Mr Brown.

‘Champagne!’

‘Well near enough,’ said Mr Brown. ‘It’s fizzy anyway.’

‘Oh, I never thought I’d drink champagne,’ said Peggy, already giggly. ‘Aren’t we grand!’

George’s mum just kept saying ‘Champagne, well I never.’

I caught sight of the label. Not champagne, Asti spumante. Oh well. The waiter brought those saucer-shaped champagne glasses and opened the bottle with a huge pop! We stood and drank a toast to the long health and happiness of Mr and Mrs Turnbull.

‘It’s bubbly!’ laughed Peggy. ‘They go up your nose! Oh isn’t this special!’

As we sipped the fizz – one bottle between seven of us – I reached across the table and picked up the cards and the telegrams and idly looked through them. Many of them featured intertwined hearts, pink and pretty and satiny, as if love were simple and straightforward, clean and uncomplicated.

I thought of Peggy and Henfield, the scene at Friars’ Mill, Amy who had killed herself, and Peggy who’d wanted to. I thought of Will, whom I loved, and of Billy who loved his children, and sort of loved Carol but who also wanted me.

Love hearts weren’t neat and pretty like a sugared sweet. No, they were like those hearts I’d seen soaking in the bowl at Carol’s – messy and bloody, staining the waters all around them.

Soon it was time for the newlyweds to rush and get their train. They were off to stay with Aunty Emily in London and do the sights. A bit different from the trip there that had been planned for Peggy just a few weeks ago.

Peggy and I were in the Ladies, washing our hands side by side. I looked at her reflection in the mirror. She looked pretty and pink. I wondered how much was due to happiness and how much to sherry and sparkling wine. She dried her hands on a slightly damp roller towel behind the door. With her back to me and avoiding the small mirror so she couldn’t even see my reflection, she said, ‘Thank you Rosie. Thank you for all you’ve done. For, well you know. And for the jacket. And everything really.’

I was standing there, hands in the air, waiting to dry them. ‘It’s been a nice day,’ I said. ‘Have you enjoyed it?’

‘Yes, I have. I really have. To think I’m in The Fleece drinking champagne with my husband! And to think … Well, to think it might have been different. Anyway, I just …’

‘Peggy!’ Mrs Brown was pushing her way through the outer door. ‘Get a move on, girl, or you’ll miss that blessed train!’

Peggy gave me a quick smile and leapt to do her mother’s bidding.

We saw them off at the station. George already had the confidence of a married man, dealing with tickets and luggage. Derek had tied a ‘Just Married’ sign to George’s suitcase and try as he might, George couldn’t undo all the many knots that Derek had tied so devilishly.

‘Give you something to do at bedtime!’ yelled Derek as the guard blew his whistle and the train started to pull out.

George and Peggy leant out of the window of their compartment and we all waved until they vanished in a cloud of steam.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Brown with the air of a job well done. ‘Let’s go home and have a proper cup of tea then, shall we?’