Heather lifted her face to the sun and the warmth on her skin felt good. She had never been anywhere so tranquil before – all she could hear was the buzzing of bees and the hens clucking in the orchard. The utter peace boosted her determination. She’d spent the whole war dreaming of living in the country. Well, she was here now, even if this cottage was a tip. ‘So you’d better get cracking,’ she said aloud, and went back to the kitchen.
She scooped the rotten meat on to a newspaper while holding her nose. Once that was dealt with, she stacked every piece of china, each pot and ornament on the table, and took all the chairs outside. Then filling a bucket with hot water from the stove, she picked up a bar of yellow soap and began to scrub the walls and shelves.
Heather Farley was only two, her brother Thomas seven, in 1929 when their father died from tuberculosis. Home was two rooms in a tenement building in Poplar. They shared a tap and lavatory with four other families. Rats and mice played on the stairs – to leave food uncovered for just a second or two was to lose it. But Maud Farley, their mother, had been a proud woman. She didn’t sit and cry about her misfortune but went out and found cleaning jobs to keep her family from starving. Heather supposed it had been a tough childhood, but yet she had nothing but happy memories, with Thomas at the centre of all of them. He had looked after her when their mother was working, taken her to school, played with her and protected her. Other children sometimes jeered at her because she was a dunce, but Thomas never did. All she could remember was him praising her for her sewing, cooking and cleaning.
When war broke out in 1939, Thomas had been working in Smithfield Market for three years. He was very much the man of the house. Heather could remember crying because Thomas said he was going to join up as soon as he was eighteen and she didn’t think she could live without him.
But she did learn to live without him, and her mother too. Thomas joined up in 1940 and was sent overseas almost immediately. In October of the same year before Heather was even thirteen, her mother was killed in an air raid on her way home from work, while Heather was waiting for her down in the shelter.
Neighbours often said that Heather was from the same mould as Maud. As devastated as she was, she stayed in their home, took over her mother’s two cleaning jobs and just carried on, ignoring the bombs, dismissing the idea that she too might be killed, just waiting for the day when her brother would come home on leave and tell her what to do next. But Thomas never came home, he was in the Far East somewhere. Heather got a neighbour to read his infrequent letters out to her and dictated cheerful letters back. Then just as she thought nothing worse could happen, in January of 1942 their tenement building took a direct hit, reducing it to a heap of rubble.
She had been fourteen then. She took a job as laundry assistant in Whitechapel Hospital and found a tiny room in Bethnal Green. In February of that year she heard the news that Singapore had fallen, but she didn’t know definitely if that was where Thomas was and anyway all the post from the Far East took a long time to get through.
The year had worn on, but still with no word from Thomas, Heather had become increasingly worried. The last letter she had received from him arrived just days before the flats were bombed. She made inquiries at the post office to see what they did with mail arriving for an address which no longer existed and they assured her they kept it till it was claimed. Other people urged her to keep sending letters to Thomas; they said the army and Red Cross worked together to make sure men got their mail, wherever they were, but still she heard nothing. Not even one of those brief notes to inform her that her brother had been taken prisoner. She felt deep inside that Thomas must be dead; he had always been so conscientious and resourceful, she was sure he would have found some way to let her know he was safe.
Finally a kindly priest investigated for her. The information she eventually received in 1944, over two years after Thomas’s last letter, was the worst and most bitter blow she’d ever been dealt. Thomas Farley had gone missing when Singapore fell and as they had no record of him in any prison camp, he was presumed dead.
Heather had always been a buoyant and optimistic girl but this news wiped her out. There seemed to be no point in anything then; she had nothing to look forward to, no one to care for, or to care about her. It was only in January of 1945 that she managed to pull herself together enough to leave the laundry and find a new job in a cafeteria in Piccadilly. This was where she had met Cole Parker.
It was in late April, just a couple of weeks after her eighteenth birthday. Everyone in London was in a state of excitement anticipating that victory would be declared at any time. The pubs and clubs were getting in stocks of beer and spirits for the celebrations, the tube stations were finally closed as bomb shelters and men loaded up trucks with mountains of obsolete sandbags. Heather had found the excitement to be infectious. She trimmed her hair, put on some lipstick and even began to feel a stirring of her old optimism.
The cafeteria had been very busy that day, not just at lunch time, but all day. As fast as she cleared the tables, more people came in and filled them again.
At about four in the afternoon she saw the big dark-haired man standing with a tray of food, unable to find a seat, and she hurried over to him, directing him to a corner table that she’d just cleared.
He seemed to want to talk, asking her for directions to Victoria, where he said he had to pick up some goods. Heather always talked willingly to everyone, but it was the man’s rolling, country accent which struck her more than his conversation. She’d never heard anything like it before. He told her he came from Somerset and he teased her about her cockney accent too.
He was still there when it was time for her to have a break, and on an impulse she joined him at his table. That was when he told her how his wife had been killed two years earlier when she’d come up to London for a visit. He said his boys, Seth and Norman, were old enough to fend for themselves, but that his little girl Rosie was only eight and he worried about her growing up without a woman’s influence.
He said he’d tried to find a housekeeper, but joked that no one would stay once they saw the state of his cottage. Heather’s heart went out to him and his little girl.
The wild celebrations on Victory Day and the turmoil in the days that followed put the man out of her mind. She certainly never expected to see him again. But one afternoon almost three weeks after they’d first met, he came back to the cafeteria, and this time it was clear he’d come especially to find her. He asked if they could meet up when she’d finished work, and although all the other waitresses said he looked a bit dangerous, she agreed to go.
He took her to the White Bear on Piccadilly, packed full of servicemen, and he told her so much more about his home and family.
‘Seth’s a bugger,’ he said with a grin. ‘Just like me at the same age. It’ll do him good when he’s called up for his National Service later this year, put some discipline into him. Norman’s not much better, but as thick as a plank. Rosie’s a bright little thing though. Always reading and asking questions. She deserves better.’
Heather couldn’t help but view the whole family in a romantic light. Two boys as dark and handsome as their father, a little girl growing wild because she had no mother to guide her. She didn’t even think to ask Cole why he hadn’t been called up during the war, she was sure there must be some very good reason. When he asked if she would consider coming to look after them, she said she’d think about it, and give him her answer in two weeks’ time when he returned to London.
The two weeks seemed endless. Each day it became clearer to her that there was nothing for her in London. Her room was tiny and dark, she had no real friends, no family or boyfriend, and she felt she was too plain to ever find one. London was full of sad, painful memories too. Maybe in time she would forget the terror of the Blitz, the exact sound of a doodlebug or that pungent gas and plaster smell that hung in the air after a bombing, but she knew that whatever else might ease with time, her lost brother’s face w
ould be as clear in her mind in another twenty years as it was now.
She had her bag packed with her few belongings two days before Cole arrived for her answer.
Heather was sitting outside in the sunshine drinking a cup of tea when Cole and Rosie came back. She had worked like a slave for two hours, and she was just resting while the floor dried. She still hadn’t gone beyond the kitchen. An unpleasant smell from behind the henhouse in the orchard directed her to the lavatory. It was quite the worse she’d ever seen, a stinking, dark, spider-ridden privy, but she hadn’t the strength to tackle that today.
Rosie came rushing through the gate, excitement in her periwinkle-blue eyes.
‘Dad got lots of special things because you’ve come,’ she blurted out breathlessly, sitting down beside Heather and sliding her hand into the older girl’s. ‘It took us a long time because Dad had to get some of the things from people he knows.’
‘The black market?’ Heather asked, looking up. Cole held a bulging canvas bag and a sack stuffed with something.
‘Kind of,’ he grinned. ‘Rationing don’t bother us too much round here, we got our own ways.’
Rosie disappeared into the kitchen but burst out again almost immediately, her eyes huge as millstones. ‘Dad! Dad! Come and see what Heather’s done. It looks real grand.’
Cole put his load down by Heather and went in to inspect. Like his daughter he came back grinning from ear to ear. ‘It looks like I got your number right,’ he said, patting her shoulder. ‘I ain’t seen it looking like that for many a year.’
Heather glowed. She felt certain that Cole was as unaccustomed to doling out praise as she was to receiving it. ‘I’ve put the curtains in to soak and those easy chairs need new covers,’ she said, but the questions she’d intended to ask him were immediately forgotten as she opened the sack beside her and saw two dead rabbits staring up at her.
She’d seen rabbits hanging in butchers’ shops of course, but she’d never imagined buying the whole animal and having to deal with skinning it.
Cole laughed at her horrified expression and fished them out by the back legs, dangling them teasingly in front of her face. ‘They’ll need to hang for a coupla days, but I’ll skin them for you, don’t you worry. Take a look in the other bag.’
Heather had never seen so much food outside a shop in her life. Flour, sugar, dried fruit, jam, margarine and bread, a parcel of fresh meat, butter in waxed paper, cheese and bacon, and a whole heap of vegetables. He had got cleaning materials too: more soap, soda, wire wool, Jeyes fluid and a tin of beeswax polish. She could hardly believe what she was seeing – the shortages in London were so chronic it would take a fortnight going from queue to queue to get just half of these items. She looked at Rosie helplessly and the child smiled.
With that one smile Heather knew she would grow to love this child.
‘We get the eggs from the hens,’ Rosie said. ‘I collect them up. I know all their hiding places, and I’ll show you an’ all.’
It was after eight that night when the whole family sat down around the kitchen table to eat the liver and bacon and mashed potatoes Heather had cooked. She was a bit tiddly as Cole had given her a couple of glasses of cider, but perhaps that was just as well because it took the edge off his two sons’ rudeness.
Their arrival at seven had shattered the peace. First the roaring of a motorbike, then the stamping of heavy boots across the yard. Both boys were filthy dirty with mud up to their knees and Seth, the older one, had slung two huge, still-wriggling eels into the sink before he so much as glanced Heather’s way.
As Cole had already said, the boys were so alike they could have been twins. An inch taller than their father, but with the rangy slenderness of youth, they shared the same black hair and eyes, olive skin and razor-sharp cheek bones. But although they were undeniably handsome with their tanned faces and perfect teeth, somehow the special something which Cole had, that sparkle which drew the eyes and warmed Heather’s heart, was missing in his sons.
‘So you’re the bint from London?’ was Seth’s first remark to Heather, his cold black eyes travelling up and down her body making her squirm inwardly like one of his eels. ‘Shouldn’t think you’ll take to it here.’
Norman wasn’t quite so unpleasant. He remarked on how nice the kitchen looked and told her not to worry about the eels because he’d skin them later. But even he gave her the impression that he was fearful of how a woman in the house would interfere with their freedom.
Heather asked them both nicely if they would mind taking their boots off out in the porch, but they ignored her and flopped down in the two easy chairs regardless of their muddy trousers.
‘Rosie, take Heather upstairs,’ Cole snapped and Rosie, who had been helping peel the potatoes, jumped to it, grabbing Heather’s hand and leading her to the narrow winding staircase in the corner of the kitchen.
‘Dad’s going to blast them,’ Rosie said as she led Heather into the small bedroom they were to share. It contained nothing more than a double wooden bedstead and a small chest of drawers. There weren’t even curtains at the window and the bed was unmade, grubby sheets exposed. Yet the room pleased Heather for she had been just a little anxious that a country man like Cole would think a housekeeper should share everything with him, including his bed.
‘Blast them?’ Heather repeated; for a moment she thought the child meant Cole was going to take the shotgun she’d seen in the porch to his sons.
‘You know, bawl them out, clout them,’ Rosie said nonchalantly. ‘He just don’t want to do it in front of you.’
The walls and floorboards might have been thick enough to blot out the row that ensued, but the windows and doors were wide open and Heather heard every word.
‘We don’t want some cockney tart bossing us around.’ Seth’s voice was sullen.
‘This is my house and I’m master in it,’ Cole roared. ‘Heather ain’t no tart, and if you don’t like her being here, then you’s can just piss off out of here for good.’
‘But Dad,’ Seth was whining now. ‘We was gettin’ on just fine on our own.’
‘We lived like pigs, and you two were wallowing in your own filth. But I didn’t bring Heather here for your benefit, I brought her here for our Rosie. I don’t want my daughter growing up like you two ignorant beasts. Now get those boots off, and put them in the porch, wash up and go and change your clothes before supper, or you’ll get nothing. And take those blasted eels outside, they’re enough to terrify anyone.’
The sudden silence in the kitchen then the splash from the pump in the back yard proved that the boys were obeying, however reluctantly.
‘Are your brothers always like this, or is it just because of me?’ Heather asked. Even before the boys came home she had been apprehensive about them. Rosie had shown her their bedroom and it stunk worse than a stable, of a mixture of stale urine and sweat. Rosie had airily explained it away by saying Seth often wet the bed when he’d been drinking. Heather hoped she wouldn’t be expected to wash his sheets; she drew the line at grown men’s messes.
‘Norman’s not so bad, when you get him on his own,’ Rosie said, anxiously touching Heather’s arm as if afraid she was about to run off. ‘But Seth’s horrible. I’ll be glad when he gets his call-up.’
Heather’s cooking pleased all three men. They wolfed it down and mopped up the gravy with thick slices of bread. Heather didn’t like the way the boys ate with their mouths wide open or their many belches, but at least they seemed more kindly disposed towards her. Whether this was due to ‘the blasting’ or just satisfied hunger, she didn’t know, but Seth said she was a good cook as she cleared the table, and Norman invited her outside to see him skin the eels.
They were still alive, wriggling and squirming even though Seth had cut their heads off.
‘It’s just like peeling off a girl’s stockings,’ Norman said with a lascivious grin and proceeded to run his knife down one of the eels’ underbelly and show her what he meant. ‘Ever
eaten eels?’
‘Jellied ones,’ she said, thinking she’d never eat another one as long as she lived. ‘Is that what you’re going to do with them?’
‘No, these are for a mate of mine, he smokes ‘em. Me and Seth don’t like ‘em much. We only catch ‘em to sell ‘em. You wait till the nights we go for them proper. We catches hundreds on the right night of the year when they’re trying to get back towards the sea. We can make fifty quid from a good night’s work and Dad takes them up for the Yids in London.’
Heather looked down at the two skinned eels still wriggling in the basin and shuddered. She had a feeling that before long she’d be witnessing many more country skills that would make her want to run back to the civilization of London.
*
‘What about having a bath and letting me wash yer ‘air?’ Heather suggested to Rosie after the men had disappeared off to the pub. She had gathered that this pub was some two miles away, and she had a feeling the men wouldn’t return until after closing time.
She still hadn’t given Rosie the fairy story book she’d brought with her from London. Cole had said Rosie was a good reader and she’d already demonstrated this by reading out something from the Picture Post. Heather almost wished she hadn’t brought the book now, as it would mean she’d have to admit she couldn’t read any more than the simplest words herself.
‘But Sunday is bath night,’ Rosie said, her blue eyes wide with astonishment. ‘It’s only Saturday.’
‘Where I come from we ‘ave a bath when we’re dirty,’ Heather said. ‘And I don’t believe that ‘air’s bin washed since Christmas.’
‘It has,’ Rosie said indignantly. She didn’t feel intimidated by Heather; she was nice, and it was good to have company – the evenings always seemed very long on her own.
‘Well I fancy a bath ‘an all.’ Heather decided she must make certain she didn’t embarrass the girl. ‘So let’s lug it in, shall we? I’ll let you go first!’