The Girl on the Beach (29 page)

He grinned. ‘I understand. Seven o’clock do you?’

‘Yes, perfectly. Will you send him up when he arrives?’

She had returned to her room to wait for him with growing trepidation. Their earlier meeting had been unsatisfactory in so many ways. The surroundings had hardly been conducive to loving reunions and he had been too shocked to take in everything she said or to talk about himself. She had known she would have to repeat it all when he arrived, which is exactly what had happened, and this time he had many more questions for her. While they ate and drank the wine, she told him everything all over again, and it was not until after they had finished and sat over the remnants of the meal, drinking the last of the wine, that she began to question him about himself. It was then he told her he had remarried.

‘Yes. I met her when I was stationed at Swanton Morley. We hit it off right from the start. You were gone and I was lonely and needed someone to keep me going, someone to come back to after an op. We married in March 1943 and have two children, twins, a boy and a girl.’ It sounded flat said like that, but he couldn’t tell her how he had fallen in love with Pam, how she was a steadying influence when he felt like going off half-cocked, how they laughed at the same things, how good they were together in bed, how much he adored the twins, who were fast-developing characters of their own and whose wide grins when they saw him coming made his spirits soar. He couldn’t say any of that.

‘But you can’t be married to her, can you? You’re still married to me.’

‘I know that now. I didn’t at the time.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘I can’t leave her, Julie, if that’s what you think. She’s the mother of my children.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘Of course I love her. I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t.’

‘But you loved me. You said you did, and I adored you, right from the beginning when we met on the beach. Do you remember saying we were fated to meet again when you rescued me from Ted Austen?’

‘Of course I do. I remember everything about our life together – your funny little ways, how you learnt to cook and how well you looked after George, which is why I find it difficult to understand why you left him with your friend that day.’

‘It was one of the things I found hard to understand myself when my memory came back, but Grace reminded me. I owed her some money and I needed to pay it back. I knew you wouldn’t like me getting into debt.’

‘So you went to see Miss Paterson in the middle of an air raid and left our son to be looked after by someone you hardly knew because you were afraid I would be cross with you.’

Stated baldly like that, it didn’t sound like the actions of a loving mother and she hastened to explain. ‘The raid hadn’t started when I left, and it was such a hot day I didn’t want to drag him across London with me.’

‘Why did you owe Miss Paterson money?’

‘I borrowed some from her to pay Rosie. Rosie had been providing me with stuff that was hard to get: extra rations, bits and pieces for George.’

‘Black market.’

‘Yes, I suppose it was. I didn’t think of it like that. It was simply stuff I needed for George.’

‘And you couldn’t pay for it. Oh, Julie, we talked about how you could manage your housekeeping before I went away, remember?’

‘Yes, and I tried, I really did, but having a few extras was so tempting and Rosie didn’t charge much, not at first.’

‘That’s how those things usually start, and then it grows from there. You get into someone’s clutches and you can’t get out of them. Where was Rosie getting the stuff?’

‘I think it was from Ted Austen.’

‘That creep who tried to rape you?’ he asked in astonishment.

‘Yes. I didn’t know it was him. I didn’t even know he knew Rosie, not until I saw him again just over a fortnight ago, and then the penny dropped. I would have stopped it sooner if I had known.’

‘How did that come about? Seeing him again, I mean.’

The meeting wasn’t going at all as she had expected it to. Instead of talking about how they felt for each other, their joy at being together again, he was quizzing her about Ted Austen. ‘He saw me when I visited the cemetery. He seemed to get a great deal of pleasure out of it. He tried to blackmail me – said if I didn’t want you to know I was alive, he’d keep mum for a consideration.’

‘So you decided it would be better to come clean?’

‘No, Harry, that’s not fair. I wanted to see you again, it was the first thing I thought of when my memory came back, after worrying about leaving George. He got hold of the wrong end of the stick there. Why are we talking about him? He’s a reptile and I loathe him.’

‘Where did you get the money to pay Miss Paterson back?’

‘I pawned my wedding ring. I was going to redeem it, truly I was, but I didn’t get the chance.’

‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ he said looking down at her bare fingers.

‘When I came round in the hospital after they pulled me out of the shelter, I couldn’t remember being married, and as I wasn’t wearing a ring everyone assumed I was single. I was given the surname Seaton and chose Eve for a Christian name and was issued with a new identity card and ration book in that name. I had nowhere to go when I came out of hospital and took a job in Southwark for a time hoping someone might recognise me, but no one ever did, so I joined up.’ She paused, searching his face. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come back. There have been times in the past couple of weeks, while they were doing all sorts of tests on me in hospital, that I wondered if it would have been better if I’d never remembered. I even thought of pretending I hadn’t and carrying on as Eve Seaton to the end of my days.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Because I loved you, Harry, and we are husband and wife, until death us do part—’ She stopped suddenly.

‘I know. I dread to think what this is going to do to Pam.’

‘You have to tell her.’

‘I suppose I must, but it’s going to be difficult.’

She watched him struggling with his inner turmoil and understood only too well. Why she didn’t tell him about Alec she didn’t know, although it had been the last thing Florrie had said to her before she left Manston. ‘Don’t forget Alec is waiting for you.’ In the emotion of her reunion with Harry, she almost had.

She drained the last of the wine in her glass and stood up, only to discover her legs were decidedly wobbly. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, stumbling against the table.

Laughing, he jumped up to guide her to the bed. ‘You never could hold your drink, could you, my love?’ He sat her down, took off her shoes and stockings and her dress, then pushed her back onto the pillows and lifted her feet onto the bed, before pulling the eiderdown over her. She was only half aware of what he was doing. ‘Harry,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m sorry …’

‘You’re exhausted,’ he murmured. ‘And small wonder. I’m shattered myself. I’ll try and see you again tomorrow.’ He dropped a kiss on her forehead and left her to sleep.

After a sleepless night which was plagued with visions of Pam and the twins and his cosy home, Harry applied for a pass to spend some time with his wife. He was given twenty-four hours, which did not give him time to do anything to sort out the muddle he was in. How could he turn his back on Pam and his children for an old love? He had loved Julie, still did in a way, but it wasn’t the same, or he didn’t think it was. Whichever way he went, he was going to break someone’s heart. And he dreaded to think what Pam’s parents would have to say about it, or his own parents, come to that. Divorce was unheard of in their circles; it carried a stigma not easily overcome. But if he didn’t go down that road, he would make bastards of his lovely babies, not to mention ruin Pam’s life. And he loved her.

He had to make Julie see that, so he called for her at the hotel and suggested a day out in the countryside. ‘Shropshire is a particularly lovely county,’ he told her. She was dressed in the floral cotton again, topped with
a rose-coloured cardigan. Her fair hair was held back by a blue Alice band. Anyone less like a servicewoman and more like the girl he had married was hard to imagine.

She laughed. ‘I know. I was stationed at Bridgnorth.’

There was so much he didn’t know about her life since they parted, it was like getting to know a stranger. They took a bus into the hills and set off to walk and talk, catching up on the last four years as old school pals might do at a reunion. It was difficult for him to refrain from mentioning Pam because she was in his thoughts, and difficult for her not to speak of Alec because he had been such a large part of those years, but neither wanted to introduce a jarring note, though both knew they would have to face up to the implications.

They returned in the late afternoon with nothing decided, only to find a furious Pam waiting in the lobby for them. She had evidently been there some time. An ashtray overflowing with lipstick-tinted dog ends and a half-empty wine glass bore witness to that. Seeing the two of them come in, laughing together, inflamed her even further. She stood up. ‘So it is true! Harry Walker, you two-timing low-down skunk. You bastard! Not content with one wife, you have to be greedy and have two …’ She looked Julie up and down, a flushed but decidedly attractive Julie. ‘As for you …’ Words failed her and, picking up the wine glass, she dashed the remaining contents in Julie’s face. ‘Or perhaps you didn’t know. Perhaps he kept you in the dark just as he did me.’

‘Pam’ he said, taking the glass from her hand and setting it back on the table before it followed the wine. ‘Calm down, for goodness’ sake, everyone is looking at you. I can explain.’

‘Are you going to tell me she isn’t your wife?’ She jerked her head towards Julie who had wiped the wine from her face and was dabbing at the stain on the front of her dress
with a handkerchief. ‘Because I won’t believe you.’

‘No, I’m not saying that.’ He took her arm. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can talk in private.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about. I’ve finished with you. I’m going back home to my children. They need me more than you do.’ She picked up her handbag and rushed from the room.

He gave Julie a despairing glance and followed Pam out to the street. She walked a few yards, then stopped and turned towards him. She was calmer now, the high colour of anger drained from her face, leaving it pale and drawn. ‘That is Julie, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long?’

‘How long have I known she wasn’t dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Only since yesterday.’

‘You saw her in Canterbury.’

‘I thought I was seeing a ghost, I told you that at the time. I can’t tell you how shocked I was when she turned up here.’

‘I went to the airfield. They said you’d been given leave. Leave! I don’t suppose it occurred to you to come home to me. Instead of that you booked in here.’

‘I did not.’

‘According to the manager you were. He told me your wife had come to spend her leave with you.’

‘I don’t know where he got that from. I only went to her room to talk to her.’

‘I’m supposed to believe that?’

‘Yes. It’s the truth.’

‘Where have you been today, if not spending your leave
with your wife?’ The venom she put into the last word made him shudder.

‘Out walking. Talking mostly.’ He forced himself to stay calm. Becoming angry would not help. ‘She had an extraordinary tale to tell.’

‘I bet she did.’

‘How did you know she was here?’

‘I didn’t know. I booked into the hotel and saw her name in the register. Mrs Julie Walker. It confirmed it.’

‘Confirmed what?’

‘This.’ She opened her bag and delved in it for the anonymous letter and thrust it at him.

‘Oh, Pam,’ he said forlornly, studying the crumpled missive. ‘I’d have done anything for you not to have found out this way.’

‘Any way would have been bad. You’ve made a whore of me and bastards of our children.’

He winced. ‘Not intentionally, and it can be put right. I’ll get a divorce and marry you again.’

‘I’m not sure I want to be married to you, Harry Walker.’

‘You can’t mean that.’

‘You never made any secret of how much you loved your first wife. And now she’s here and you can go on loving her …’

‘But I love
you
and you love me and we both love our children. Surely you don’t want to throw all that away?’

‘I don’t know what I want. I don’t know anything anymore. I’m going home. Just leave me alone.’ She turned on her heel and left him standing. He took a couple of steps to follow her, but changed his mind and went back to the hotel. A confrontation with Julie about the future could not be put off any longer.

Julie had gone to her room, where she sat at the dressing table and contemplated the wine stain on the front of her dress. It wouldn’t come out and the garment was ruined, though that was the least of her worries. She felt desperately sorry for Pam, who hadn’t given either of them time to explain what had really happened. She hoped Harry would be able to calm her down; the last thing she wanted was to come between them. She wanted to get out of their lives, but simply disappearing again was not an option because there would have to be a divorce, and something had to be decided about Rosie and that grave. And that meant involving Mr and Mrs Summers and her parents-in-law. She was dreading that.

She stripped off the dress and put her uniform on again. In that she could be Sergeant Eve Seaton which, she realised, was what she wanted to be, and it helped her to be more sensible. She was a mature woman, not the child bride she had once been. Both she and Harry had moved on; the past could not be recaptured.

She turned when she heard a knock at her door and Harry’s voice saying, ‘May I come in?’

‘Yes, of course.’

He came in, almost shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry about that outburst, Julie.’

‘It was understandable. How did she find out?’

‘An anonymous letter.’

‘How awful for her. Someone really wanted to cause trouble – and I can guess who.’

‘Who?’

‘Ted Austen. He’s wicked, that man. I can’t understand how good people are being killed every day in raids and he seems to survive without a scratch. I hope you managed to
persuade Pam I’m no threat to her or your life together.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No, of course not. I shouldn’t have come up here; I should have left it to a lawyer to sort out the legal side and been content with that. It was silly of me, but I just wanted to see your face when you saw me again and realised I was alive.’

He sat on the bed, his hands dangling between his knees. ‘Did you expect us to carry on where we left off?’

‘No, Harry. Silly I might be, but I’m also a realist. I couldn’t expect you to mourn me for ever, much as it would have boosted my ego.’ She sat on the dressing table stool and faced him squarely, putting on a smile to cheer him because he looked so miserable. ‘Even before I knew you had married again, I knew it could never happen. We aren’t the same people we were. We’ve grown up a bit, don’t you think? You have a life with Pam. She is the mother of your children and you love her. Besides, you are not the only one to find someone else.’

‘You mean you married again?’

‘No. I didn’t dare commit myself that far while I couldn’t remember who I was or whether I was already married.’

‘But you want to?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘I want to. I loved you, Harry. The naive girl I was will always love you for what you once meant to me, for the good times we had together, but I am no longer that naive girl, no longer Julie Monday. We have both changed.’

‘Bless you,’ he said, reaching out to take her hands in his. ‘I’ll have to try and make Pam understand that. At the moment she says she doesn’t want to be married to me and has told me to leave her alone.’

‘She doesn’t mean it. Go to her, Harry.’

He raised her hands to his lips in a gentle kiss, then stood up, took a long look at her and left.

Everyone was crammed into the sitting room behind the bakery in Swanton Morley – everyone except the main protagonists. Pam’s father was sitting in his rocking chair gripping his pipe, though there was no tobacco in it and he wasn’t attempting to smoke it. Jane was dispensing tea to Mr and Mrs Walker and Mr and Mrs Summers. The men were sitting on upright chairs brought in from the dining room, the women sat together on the sofa. It was, so they had decided, a council of war.

‘Pam is in a right pickle, poor dear,’ Jane said. ‘She came back late last night. I gave her one of my sleeping pills and put her to bed.’

‘So it’s true, then. Julie is alive,’ Hilda said.

‘Yes. Pam saw them together.’

‘So, it must be our Rosie in that grave,’ Angela said. She was not concerned with how Pam was feeling or what Harry and Julie would do about their marriage; her only concern was that her daughter should be exhumed and reburied in Scotland.

‘It looks like it,’ Donald said. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It’s my fault. I didn’t look closely enough before confirming the body was that of my daughter-in-law, but it never occurred to me it wasn’t Julie.’

‘I want the grave opened,’ Angela said. ‘Who would be responsible for authorising that?’

‘The coroner, I reckon,’ Bert said. ‘But I don’t see what you’d gain by that. Beggin’ your pardon, Mrs Summers, but you wouldn’t be able to tell it were your daughter, not
after all this time. All we can be sure of is that it i’n’t Julie.’

‘Where’s she been all these years, I should like to know?’ Jane said. ‘Has Harry known all along she wasn’t dead?’

‘Of course he hasn’t,’ Hilda said in defence of her son. ‘When he came back from Canada, we told him we had buried his wife and he believed us. He had no reason not to.’

‘Well, he’ll have to divorce her and marry Pam properly,’ Jane said. ‘Goodness knows I don’t hold with divorce; marriage is for life in my book, but I can’t see any other way out. We have to think of the children.’

‘I agree,’ Hilda said. ‘I was all for sending Julie packing and saying nothing, but too many people know she’s alive now.’

‘Not least that creep Austen,’ Stuart said with feeling. ‘He’ll not let it drop if he thinks there’s money to be made out of the situation.’

‘Seems Julie herself scuppered that by going to see Harry,’ Donald said. ‘Do you think Austen knows that?’

Stuart shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say, but it makes no difference, does it? We’ve got to get everyone out of this mess before the papers get hold of it.’

‘You think it will get in the papers?’ Jane asked, horrified at the thought.

‘I wouldn’t put it past Austen to sell them the story.’

‘Who’s going to be the guilty party in a divorce?’ Jane asked, having no interest in Ted Austen’s antics.

‘Not Harry,’ Hilda said. ‘He’s done nothing wrong.’

‘Neither has Pam.’

‘I think we’re jumpin’ the gun,’ Bert put in, fiddling with his pipe. ‘It’s up to Harry and Pam and Julie how this is resolved, not us.’

‘That doesn’t alter the fact that our daughter needs to be
buried properly.’ Angela was determined to have her say.

‘She was buried properly,’ Donald protested. ‘It was a very moving service. The only thing that’s wrong is the name on the stone. I suggest we simply have that changed.’

‘And the baby?’ Hilda asked.

‘George is at peace. He is with someone who tried to protect him. Let’s leave it like that, shall we?’ He turned to Stuart. ‘I’ll undertake to have the headstone changed if you tell me what you want put on a new one.’

‘That seems to be a sensible solution all round,’ Stuart said slowly. ‘We could have another short service when it’s put in place. You’ll agree to that, Angie, won’t you?’

She sighed. ‘I suppose I must.’

‘If Harry agrees,’ Hilda said.

There was no one there who cared whether Julie agreed or not.

Not a quarter of a mile away, in Honeysuckle Cottage, Harry had arrived and persuaded Pam to talk to him. He had been summoned to the Station Commander’s office when he went back to the station after leaving Julie. Two wives turning up to see him in the space of two days was not to be tolerated, he had been told. He was to take a week’s compassionate leave and sort himself out and then get back on duty, which was no more than he wanted to do anyway.

‘Say what you’ve got to say, I’m listening,’ she said tonelessly. She had arrived home very late the night before after an uncomfortable journey on two crowded trains. Physically tired and emotionally drained, she had few words to say to her mother before she had been packed off to bed with a mug of cocoa and a sleeping tablet. Unused to it, it had felled her like a log and she was still not properly awake.

‘There is only one thing I need to say,’ he said quietly. ‘I love you. There is no one else …’

‘That’s two things,’ she said, managing a smile.

‘So it is, but they can’t be separated.’ He reached across the table and took both her hands in his. ‘I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Nothing and no one can alter that.’