The Girl on the Beach (3 page)

Once they went into Westminster Abbey out of the rain and she stood looking down at the grave of the unknown soldier. ‘That could have been my father,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I think I’ll pretend it was.’

He smiled and squeezed her arm. ‘Why not?’

They discussed the death of King George the previous
January and the succession of Edward VIII, wondering what sort of king he would make. In the event, he was not king for long because he abdicated in December in order to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, who was not acceptable to most of the British public, certainly not to its religious leaders. He became the Duke of Windsor and his brother became George VI and, in the summer of 1937, there was a coronation. Harry and Julie stood in the street with everyone else to watch the King and Queen pass in the great golden state coach, followed by the little princesses in another coach and a whole string of cars containing the great and the good. Everyone was cheering and waving little flags.

Very occasionally she was allowed an evening off and they went to the cinema to laugh at Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops and saw newsreels of happenings in Europe. The Spanish Civil War still raged, Hitler had tested his muscles by occupying the demilitarised area of the Rhineland and no one had tried to stop him, and Mussolini was becoming a force to be reckoned with in Italy – all very worrying to the politicians, but such distant happenings did not encroach on Julie’s life and Harry did not want to spoil her happiness by telling her of his own misgivings.

Life, for Julie, took on a new dimension; her horizons widened. She was vibrantly alive and instead of feeling isolated she felt part of it all, especially when she was with Harry, whom she idolised. She didn’t want it to end and neither did he, but end it did. And it was all the fault of Ted Austen.

She always did her best to avoid him, but sometimes they met in the kitchen or the garden and he would grin at her and tell her he had not forgotten the beating he had
endured on her behalf and that it had to be paid for. She would be sorry. ‘Not as sorry as you if you touch me again,’ she retorted on one occasion.

‘Oh, and who is to stop me?’

‘The same person who stopped you before.’ She knew as soon as she spoke she had made a grave mistake. He did not say anything, but he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

The next Sunday, returning from her meeting with Harry, she was summoned to Lady Chalfont’s sitting room. She went with some trepidation, but with no idea what was to come.

‘I believe you have been meeting a young man on your afternoon off,’ Her Ladyship said. ‘You know it is expressly forbidden for the servants to have followers, especially servants like you whose family background no one can know. I was always sceptical about employing you but Sir Bertram said we should give a Foundling inmate an opportunity to make good. And this is the sorry outcome.’

Julie stood and stared. It was so unexpected she didn’t know what to say. ‘Well, miss, what have you to say for yourself? Do you deny it?’

‘No, My Lady.’ Julie had been taught always to be truthful, and in any case, denying Harry would be like a betrayal.

‘I cannot have you contaminating my innocent children and setting a bad example to the rest of the staff. Go to your room and pack your bags. You may stay there for the rest of today and tonight. You will not see the children or do anything for them, do you understand? You will leave first thing in the morning and take nothing you did not bring with you when you first came here or buy with your
own money. I am prepared to pay the wages owed to you and that is being generous.’

‘But where am I to go?’

‘That is not my concern. You should have thought about that before you embarked on this affair. Go to your young man, seeing as you put him before your job here. You will probably discover he has feet of clay, just as you have.’

Julie turned away. She did not think Lady Chalfont knew Harry’s name and she would not divulge it. Harry was employed by Sir Bertram, as was his father. Going to Harry would put them at risk.

She trudged up to her room at the top of the house and shut herself in. It was here, where no one could see or hear her, she gave way to despair and howled with misery, frustration and anger, mostly anger. She had no doubt who had betrayed her and wondered how anyone could be so vindictive.

When she had no more tears left, she stopped crying and scrubbed at her eyes. It was done now, but where could she go? She dragged her carpet bag down from the top of the wardrobe and began stuffing her things in it. They did not amount to much: some underclothes, a few toiletries, a hairbrush and comb, a pair of slippers and two nightdresses she had bought to replace those the hospital had provided her with when she left them. There was her Sunday dress but she would have to wear that because her two uniform dresses, aprons and caps would have to be left behind. There was a book of poems Harry had given her for her birthday, which the Foundling Hospital had decreed was exactly a week before she arrived there, and a scarf and gloves he had given her for Christmas. Everything was soon stowed in the bag and, as she had
nothing else to do, she went to bed. But not to sleep.

Next morning, bleary-eyed, she collected two weeks’ wages from the housekeeper; Lady Chalfont declined to see her again and would not allow her to say goodbye to the children. She picked up her bag and left by the mews gate. Ted Austen was lounging against the garage door smoking a cigarette. She turned and hurried away in the opposite direction, half afraid he would follow her. But then she told herself not to be so silly; he had to drive Sir Bertram to the factory, as he did every weekday morning, returning to take Lady Chalfont to the shops or to her various social engagements, and he would not dare absent himself. But she was aware of his triumphant grin.

She took a train to Berkhamsted and the Foundling Hospital, the only other home she had ever known.

Harry stood by the bandstand for two hours the following Sunday before giving up and going home. He did not think for a minute that Julie would stand him up on purpose, so something must have prevented her from coming. He did the same thing the following week and by then he was becoming very worried. She had become important to him; he missed her infectious laugh, her serious moments, her naivety mixed with a kind of age-old wisdom which made her uniquely Julie. At work, he tried to find out if anything catastrophic had happened at the Chalfont residence which might have prevented her from meeting him, but no one knew anything and Sir Bertram arrived at the factory each morning as he always did and seemed his usual smiling self.

The third Sunday it was raining and he toured their indoor haunts but there was no sign of her. On subsequent Sundays, he took to standing at the end of her street in the
hope of catching a glimpse of her, and when that proved futile, he wandered down the mews and peeped in the back gate. It was here, one Sunday, he saw Ted Austen who took a malicious delight in telling him Julie had been dismissed.

‘What for? Where’s she gone?’

‘What for? On account of you. As for where she’s gone, how should I know? Good riddance say I. She was a tease.’

‘She is not a tease. What you mean is you couldn’t have your way with her. I know who to blame for this …’ He was clenching his fists down his sides and holding himself rigid to prevent himself lashing out. It was more important to find out where Julie had gone. ‘Where is she?’

‘How should I know? Didn’t she come running to you? Now, there’s a surprise. No doubt she’s found a new protector.’

Harry raised his fist, changed his mind and strode away. He had to find Julie. But how? She could be anywhere in the whole of London, might even have gone further afield. It seemed hopeless. Why hadn’t she come straight to him? She must have known he would look after her.

He went home and sought out his father who was reading the Sunday paper in the sitting room. They lived in a large semi-detached house in Islington. It was close enough to get to the factory easily, but far enough from it and the rest of the docklands to be considered above it in the social hierarchy.

Harry flung himself down in the chair opposite his father. ‘Pa, how do you go about finding someone who’s disappeared?’

Donald set aside the newspaper to answer his son. ‘It depends. Who’s disappeared?’

‘A girl I know.’

His father grinned. ‘I thought there was something different about you. Putting all that stuff on your hair and dressing up of a Sunday afternoon. Who is she?’

‘Julie Monday. You remember when we went to Southend, I said I’d met this girl who was lost?’

‘No, when was that?’

‘The year I went to grammar school. She was down there with a crowd from the Foundling Hospital and I took her back to her charabanc.’

‘I seem to remember something about it. What about her?’

‘I met her again last year. She was working in Sir Bertram’s household. I heard her screaming for help and found this fellow molesting her in the garden, so I waded in and saw him off with his tail between his legs. We’ve been seeing each other off and on ever since. Now she’s been dismissed because Her Ladyship found out about it. I don’t reckon that’s fair, do you?’

‘No, perhaps not, but Her Ladyship is one of the old school.’

‘It isn’t as if we were doing anything wrong, simply going for walks and talking. Now she’s gone and I don’t know where. I’ve been going round all our old haunts but there’s no sign of her. She’s such a little innocent, I’m afraid she’ll get into trouble.’

‘I don’t see it’s any of your business, son.’

‘Of course it’s my business. She lost her job because of me and I don’t think she’ll have been given a reference either. I can’t understand Sir Bertram. What’s so bad about seeing me?’

‘Nothing if you have been behaving yourselves.’

‘Of course we have. I wouldn’t—’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘I’ve got to find her, Pa. She means the world to me.’

‘Oh, come on, son, she’s only a little orphan you’ve befriended. Don’t take it to heart.’

‘She is not only a little orphan. She’s Julie. There isn’t another like her in the whole world.’

His father sighed. ‘Oh dear, you have got it bad, but I should try and forget her if I were you. She’ll survive on her own.’

Harry could not forget her. He had remembered her for ten years and he would remember her for another ten, and it would not change how he felt about her nor his growing anxiety that she had come to grief. That bounder, Ted Austen, might know and he had a good mind to beat it out of him.

Seeing his obdurate expression, his father added, ‘Don’t do anything rash, Harry. Remember she was working for our boss and you don’t want to make trouble, do you?’

Harry didn’t, but it didn’t stop him seeking Ted Austen out and giving him a hiding. It didn’t do any good. Ted didn’t know where Julie had gone and he cared even less.

What Ted did care about was the fact that he had a black eye and Sir Bertram would be bound to ask how he got it. He went to the kitchen and told the astonished staff he had caught a tramp snooping in the garden and seen him off. They were all for reporting the matter to the police, but he said the fellow had gone now and wouldn’t be back, he had seen to that. But he promised himself that wasn’t the last of it. He had endured regular beatings from his drunken father as a child and been unable to fight back, but after one particularly vicious punishment when he was twelve years
old he had run away from home, vowing no one, no one at all, would ever lay a finger on him again. His life from then on had been one of begging and stealing and dodging the police, not always successfully. It was borstal that found him a job cleaning cars at a garage and it was there he had learnt to drive. When he saw the advertisement for a chauffeur for Sir Bertram, he invented a past that would be acceptable, forged a reference and found himself with a well-paid job, a smart uniform and comfortable home. But more importantly, there were no more beatings, until that fellow turned up and hurled him back into his childhood and the pain and suffering he had endured, and that he could not forgive or forget.

‘The hospital cannot take you back in once you’ve left,’ Miss Paterson had told Julie when she arrived on the doorstep of the brand-new Coram home, tired and hungry, and related her sorry tale. ‘And I’m afraid they would be disinclined to help you after getting yourself dismissed.’

‘It wasn’t my fault. We weren’t doing any harm.’

‘You broke the rules. Goodness me, after all the years with us, you must have realised the importance of obeying rules.’

In spite of the scolding, Miss Paterson, who was very near retirement and had found herself a small first-floor flat in Shoreditch in preparation for that day, had taken pity on her and allowed her to move into the flat and helped her to find a job washing up and scrubbing floors in a boarding house on City Road, run by a Mrs Thornby.

Julie was lonelier than ever and she missed seeing Harry. She wondered if he missed her. While her hands became red and rough from the soda in the scrubbing water, she
mourned the days they had spent together and dreamt of meeting him again one day.

It came about one Friday in January 1938. It was very early in the morning and she was on her knees stoning the front step when she became aware that someone had stopped behind her. Thinking he wanted to come up the steps, she got off her knees and stood aside to let him pass. And then she gasped. ‘Harry!’

He stared. ‘Julie! I can’t believe it. I searched all over for you. Tell me what happened. How did you come to be here?’

Julie looked fearfully towards the door of the boarding house. ‘I can’t talk now. I’ll get the sack.’

‘When do you finish work?’

‘When it’s all done and I go home to bed.’

‘Oh, come, you must have some time off.’

‘I have a half day a week and a Sunday once a month. It changes about according to what the other staff are doing. Now and again Saturday half day is followed by Sunday and that makes a lovely weekend.’