The Girl on the Beach (4 page)

‘When is your next half day?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘That’s marvellous. I’m off tomorrow too. I’ll wait at the end of the road for you. What time?’

‘Julie!’ someone shrieked from inside the house. ‘I don’t pay you to gossip.’

‘Go away, Harry, please.’

‘Very well. Just tell me a time.’

‘Half past two. But I’m not promising.’

He grinned and strode away.

She watched him go. He was so handsome, so smart and, wonder of wonders, he had been looking for her. He
had not forgotten her. Somehow or other she must make it to the rendezvous.

The next day was bitterly cold and threatening snow, but that in no way deterred her. She wore her brown tweed coat, the scarf and gloves Harry had given her, a beret she had knitted for herself and a pair of black button shoes. It was not the weather that filled her with nervous apprehension as she hurried down the street that Saturday afternoon, but wondering if Harry might feel too ashamed to be seen out with someone as shabby as she was. Perhaps he would not be there, perhaps he would decide it was too cold.

To her delight he was waiting for her, well wrapped up in a warm wool coat with a fur collar, a trilby hat and leather gloves. He took her hand and tucked it under his elbow. ‘Shall we find somewhere warm? A hot cup of tea and a bun, don’t you think?’

‘Lovely.’

He took her to Lyons Corner House and they sat over tea and cakes, talking, talking, talking. ‘I nearly went mad wondering what had happened to you,’ he told her. ‘That fellow, the one who assaulted you, took great delight in telling me you had been sacked.’

‘He snitched to Lady Chalfont that I’d been seeing you. I don’t know what’s so bad about that. Her Ladyship was really nasty to me over it. I didn’t tell her who you were, though.’

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t want to get you into trouble too.’

‘Bless you. Is that why you didn’t meet me as we arranged?’

‘I couldn’t. I’d just started working for Mrs Thornby
and I daren’t ask for time off as soon as I got there. I didn’t want to lose another job.’

‘Scrubbing steps.’

‘Among other things.’

‘Do you live in?’

‘No, I live with Miss Paterson. She was one of the teachers at the Coram.’

‘The one I saw that day at Southend?’

‘Yes. She’s just retired and we live in a flat in Shoreditch.’

‘Poor you, having to live with that dragon.’

‘She’s not a dragon, she’s kind-hearted and generous and if it hadn’t been for her, I’d have ended up in the workhouse.’

‘How loyal you are. You shield me and defend her and in the process ruin your pretty hands scrubbing.’

‘We all have to work.’

‘Not all. People like Lady Chalfont don’t do a hand’s turn and many women do nothing but look after husband and house.’

‘That’s work,’ she retorted.

‘But it’s work most of them choose to do. Wouldn’t you like to be free to make that choice?’

‘Pigs might fly.’

‘I mean it. Did you tell Miss Paterson why you were sacked by Lady Chalfont?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘And have you told her you were meeting me today?’

‘No, but I will. I didn’t want to say anything in case you didn’t turn up and I’d have looked a fool.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t you know me better than that?’

‘I hoped I did. Now you are here, what have you been doing? Are you still working at Chalfont’s?’

‘Yes. We’ve turned part of the production over to radios for aeroplanes. They will be needed if there’s a war.’

‘You think there’ll be a war, then?’

‘It looks more and more like it. Everyone at the factory thinks there will be and we’re working two shifts a day and my father spends all hours there. Mother worries about him and about Roly, who’s in the RAF now.’

‘Mrs Thornby is full of gloom. She lost her husband in the last war and keeps telling everyone how awful it was. All those thousands of men killed. My father might have been one of them. I shall never know for sure. It must be terrible for the fighting men and just as bad for those at home waiting for news. I know I should be worried to death if it were you.’

‘Would you?’ He reached out and took her hand and appeared to be studying it.

‘Of course.’ She looked down at their joined hands, one strong and beautifully manicured, the other red and angry with broken nails. How different they were, how indicative of the different lives they led.

‘Julie,’ he began. ‘I don’t know if this is the right time to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. I love you very much and I couldn’t bear to lose you again, and the only way I can be sure is to ask you to marry me.’

She stared into his face in disbelief. ‘What did you say?’

He laughed and repeated it. ‘So what do you say? Will you marry me?’

‘Do you mean it? Really, really mean it?’

‘Of course I mean it, silly. I think we were meant for each other, right from the beginning when we met on the beach. Why else was I on hand when Ted Austen attacked you? Why else did I find you again after I thought I’d lost
you for good? I was on my way to work when I spotted you yesterday. I usually go on the Tube but for some reason I decided to walk. It is fate, our destiny, whatever you like to call it. Don’t you feel it too?’

‘Yes, oh, yes.’ Her eyes were shining and she was very near to tears.

He lifted her work-worn hand, opened the palm and put it to his lips. ‘Then I shall tell my family, and next week I shall take you home to meet them and we can arrange a wedding.’

‘I shouldn’t have said yes,’ she told Miss Paterson, when she went home that evening and related what had happened over supper. ‘I didn’t stop to think. He’s posh and I bet his family will look down on me and I shall feel such an idiot.’

‘Julie Monday, I despair of you. You’ve been pining for that young man for months, don’t think I haven’t noticed, so why the sudden doubts?’

‘I never thought he would ask me to marry him. It’s such a big step and I don’t know anything about being married. I shall get it all wrong, I know I will.’

Grace Paterson laughed. ‘No doubt he will set you right.’

‘Did anyone ever ask you to marry him?’

‘Yes. I was engaged once but he was killed in the last war, so I don’t know anything about being married either. I took to teaching instead.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Of course you didn’t. It’s not something I’d teach in class, is it?’

‘Do you think there’ll be another war?’

‘I don’t know. I pray not.’

‘If there’s a war, Harry might have to fight.’

‘He might. Does that make a difference to how you feel about him?’

‘No, nothing could make a difference to that. I was wondering what it would be like for those left at home.’

‘Hell,’ Grace said. ‘But I cannot think it will be as bad as last time. Lessons have surely been learnt.’

‘It’s all very worrying. Harry said the Chalfont Works were making radios for aeroplanes and working double shifts.’

‘Julie, if you are asking my advice, I’d say seize your happiness while you can, make the most of every day and every night you are together. You can’t know how long it will last.’

Julie jumped up and kissed Miss Paterson on the cheek. ‘That’s just what I wanted to hear.’ She sat down again, her exuberance suddenly evaporating. ‘But what about his family? What if they don’t like me?’

‘You are not marrying his family, Julie.’

All the same, the visit to meet Harry’s parents was a terrifying prospect, but Harry had assured her they would all welcome her with open arms. He was somewhat over-optimistic; his mother welcomed her, not with open arms but with cool politeness.

Hilda Walker was very correct, dressed impeccably in a dark-grey calf-length skirt, a white high-necked blouse and a rope of pearls. Her hair was precisely coiffured and her fingernails long and buffed to a shine. Julie tried hiding her hands in the folds of her skirt but had to bring one out to shake hands.

‘Do sit down, Miss Monday,’ Mrs Walker said.

Harry laughed and pulled Julie down on the sofa beside him. ‘Oh, Mum, this is Julie, not Miss Monday.’

‘Yes, I understand it is a made-up name.’

‘It’s the name I was registered with,’ Julie said. ‘No one knows my real name.’

‘It will soon be Walker,’ Harry put in. ‘And that will be real enough.’

Mrs Walker did not respond to that as her husband entered the room and Julie jumped up to be introduced to him. He was an older version of Harry, silver-haired, very upright and a little portly. His amber eyes were so like
Harry’s she would have taken to him even if he had not been smiling a welcome. ‘I am glad to meet you at last,’ he said. ‘Do sit down again and tell us all about yourself.’

She obeyed hesitantly, but there wasn’t much to tell and she realised how feeble she sounded and her voice faded to a stop.

‘No doubt we will learn more as we go along,’ he said. ‘Harry tells me he has asked you to marry him.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘But?’ Harry repeated in surprise. ‘You didn’t have any buts last week.’

She turned to him. ‘I know. I was bowled over and pleased as punch, but when I stopped to think—’

‘Stop that, this minute, Julie Monday,’ he interrupted, reaching for her hand. ‘I won’t listen. We love each other and we are both old enough to know our own minds. You can’t back out on me now, I won’t allow it. You do love me, don’t you?’

‘You know I do. How could I not? You’re Harry.’

‘Then it is a done deed. You are engaged to me. We are here to talk about wedding arrangements and where we’ll live afterwards. We can do that over tea.’

It was all going too fast for her and she played with her food and only half listened as dates and churches were suggested and decided upon and they moved on to discussing the reception. ‘I assume you have no one to arrange that for you,’ Mrs Walker said, still tight-lipped.

‘No. Do we need a reception?’

‘Of course we do. It will look odd if we don’t. If we are going to do it, we will do it properly. I’ll take over. We can hire a hotel room and they can do the catering. What about your wedding dress?’

That was too much for Julie. Her spirit returned. ‘I can provide my own wedding dress, thank you,’ she said.

This seemed to silence the lady, but not for long. She was soon talking about wedding cakes and flowers and whom to invite. Apart from Grace Paterson, Julie had no one to ask. Any friends she had had at the orphanage had gone their separate ways and none of the staff at Sir Bertram’s or those at the boarding house could be called friends.

‘Never mind,’ Mrs Walker said. ‘Some of our relations can sit on your side of the church.’

‘Can’t we go to a register office, then it won’t matter?’

‘No, certainly not, that’s ungodly. You must make your vows in church. They are more binding that way.’

‘I do not need vows to bind me to Harry. And wherever I make them, they will be kept, I promise you that.’ She had spoken sharply and felt Harry reach for her hand under the table and squeeze it.

‘And where will you live?’

‘I’ll find a house to rent,’ Harry said. ‘Not too far from Chalfont’s – Southwark, Bermondsey, Lambeth, somewhere like that.’

‘But they’re nothing but factories and slums,’ his mother said.

‘Not all. A lot of the old unfit houses have been pulled down and there are some decent ones there now. And we need to go carefully to start with, until I make my way up.’

‘I don’t know if you’ll do that at Chalfont’s. You are marrying one of Sir Bertram’s servants, after all.’

‘I am no longer one of his servants,’ Julie reminded them.

‘We know that.’ Again that repressive tightening of the lips.

‘It wasn’t Julie’s fault,’ Harry put in. ‘And my choice of wife has nothing to do with Sir Bertram.’

The tense meeting came to an end at last and Harry walked her home. ‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he said.

‘It was awful. Harry, I can’t go through with all that, I really can’t. Your mother made it very clear you were marrying beneath you. And the sort of wedding she’s talking about will make that plain to all your friends and relations.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, sweetheart. Dad climbed his way up from being a delivery boy with a horse and cart and Mum was a shop assistant. We can do the same. I’ll make my way up in the world and you will be with me every step of the way. You have to believe that.’

‘I will, if we can be married quietly somewhere, just you and me and a couple of witnesses.’

‘They won’t like it.’

‘Then we won’t tell them until it’s over.’

‘I don’t think I can do that.’

‘Then you must love pomp and ceremony more than you love me.’

‘Oh, Julie, how can you say that? You’re not being fair.’

‘It’s you not being fair.’ They had reached her door and she stopped to turn and face him. ‘You don’t seem to understand.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Try harder.’ She turned and let herself in the flat, leaving him staring at the green door with a number seven painted on its centre panel.

He walked away, deep in thought. Was Julie being unreasonable? Was his mother intent on humiliating her?
He did not think so, but in Julie’s shoes he might. She was extremely sensitive about her origins, or lack of them, and putting her into a crowd of his relations and friends might make her feel put down. All he wanted to do was put her on a pedestal and tell the world how wonderful she was.

‘It’s all off,’ she told Grace. ‘They are snobs and I’m not good enough for their precious son.’

Grace put a cup of cocoa in front of her. ‘What happened?’

‘Harry was on their side,’ she said after she had told the tale. ‘I thought he would understand but he didn’t.’

‘He’ll be back.’

‘Not if his mother has her way.’

‘If she does, he’s not the man I thought he was and you’ve had a lucky escape.’

Julie gave her a rueful smile. It was strange to think how close they had become, the anonymous orphan and the spinster teacher. When she had been at Coram’s, Grace Paterson had not shown her any favouritism, quite the contrary, but when she had gone to her in trouble, she had turned out to be a brick. Besides giving her a home, Grace had taught her how to speak properly and how to behave in company. It wasn’t that which was her downfall, but the fact she had no past, no family – ‘breeding’, the upper classes called it.

‘The Walkers aren’t upper class, nowhere near it,’ Grace said when she voiced this thought. ‘Mrs Walker might aspire to be something she is not but that’s her problem, nothing for you to worry about. For all you know, you might be the daughter of an earl and can be amused by her pretentiousness.’

Julie laughed. ‘Oh, you have cheered me up.’

‘Good.’

Grace was right. Harry was outside the following evening when she left work to go home. He fell into step beside her. ‘I can’t bear to be at odds with you,’ he said. ‘So I told my parents we are going to be married in a register office with a handful of witnesses and have a meal in a hotel afterwards and that’s all.’

‘And did they agree?’

‘I didn’t give them the chance to agree or disagree. I said that’s what we were going to do. They have accepted it. Has that put your fears at rest?’ He stopped walking and twisted her round to face him. ‘So, will you marry me now?’

‘Yes, Harry. And I love you all the more for being so understanding.’

He kissed her, there in the street, to the wolf whistles of those passing by. He grinned back at them. ‘She’s going to marry me.’

‘Lucky dog!’

Harry found a house to rent in Bermondsey, after the previous occupants had decided to leave London for somewhere safer in the event of war. It was at the end of a terrace and had a patch of garden at the back, reached by a narrow alley which ran down the backs of all the houses. Downstairs there was a sitting room and a kitchen which contained a sink, a cold tap and a bath covered with a plywood top when it was not in use. Water was heated in a boiler beside the kitchen range. The lavatory was outside but at least it flushed. Upstairs were two bedrooms. Julie was thrilled with it.

Here was her very own home, one she could decorate and furnish just as she pleased. They bought kitchen equipment, a table and chairs, a three-piece suite, a bedroom suite and a few rugs for the floor, helped by Harry’s parents, because, as his mother said, ‘I don’t want my son to have to live in squalor.’ Julie would have liked to refuse the largesse but she was realist enough to know that would be cutting off her nose to spite her face and hurt Harry. She would do nothing to hurt him, however much it dented her pride. She borrowed Miss Paterson’s sewing machine and made curtains and runners and cushion covers and then set about making her wedding dress.

There was some consternation when it was discovered that, as she was not yet twenty-one, she needed parental permission to marry. Grace Paterson saved the day by asking the governor of the orphanage to sign as her guardian. For Harry’s sake she relented over the register office wedding and they were married in church in March 1938, witnessed by Harry’s parents, his brother, his sister and
brother-in-law
and Grace Paterson. It was the first time Julie had met Roland and Mildred. Roland, who arrived in the uniform of a pilot officer, was like his brother in looks and gestures. Mildred was a younger and prettier version of her mother and heavily pregnant with her first child. Her husband, Ian Graham-Mellcott, was several years older than Millie, tall and thin and descended from some titled family, which Mrs Walker took great pains in informing Julie when they were introduced, though the man himself made little of it.

The simple ceremony was intensely moving and Julie, standing beside Harry in her white taffeta dress and a little headdress of orange blossom and lace, was glad she had changed her mind about a church service. Saying her
vows before an altar made the day more special, if that were possible. The three-course meal they had in the hotel afterwards was no grander than the everyday luncheon at the Chalfonts’ mansion, but everyone was jolly and smiling and toasted the newly married couple in sparkling wine.

Afterwards, glowing with happiness, Harry and Julie took a train to Southend. It was here they had met and it held special memories for both of them. The seaside holiday had grown in popularity in the intervening years, but it was essentially the same. The donkeys still plodded up and down with children on their backs, Punch still beat Judy about the head, children still paddled, built sandcastles, played bat and ball and poked about in rock pools for living creatures. Harry had booked them into the boarding house that his family had always frequented and here they spent the first night of married life.

They were both virgins, but Harry had a little more idea of what was expected of him than Julie had. They undressed shyly and scrambled into bed and lay there in each other’s arms. He put his arm beneath her shoulders and pulled her round so that he could kiss her. He was gentle, she was responsive, and then nature and instinct took over and their marriage was consummated in the most joyful satisfying way. Exhausted and happy, they slept.

The week flew by – they paddled and swam and walked along the beach, skimming pebbles; they strolled along the pier and tried out the slot machines with pennies; they played bowls on the green, went to the theatre and the cinema, and at night they made love, discovering new pleasures along the way. It seemed nothing and no one could spoil their delight in each other. And the following Saturday they went home, taking with them a garden gnome which
had taken Julie’s fancy because of his round red cheeks and beaming smile. ‘He’s one of Snow White’s dwarves,’ she told Harry, hanging onto his arm. ‘He’s Happy. Just like me.’ He had bought it for her and found a spot for it in the garden and they settled down to married life in their new home. It would have been idyllic if the fear of war had not been hanging over everyone.

Harry went to work at the factory every day, working twelve-hour shifts. Radios were needed for the new aircraft coming off the production line, for communications in the army and navy, and for the ordinary household who needed the wireless to listen to the BBC and keep abreast of the news. The Great Depression of earlier in the decade was put behind them as the populace found employment in the preparations for war.

‘Too little, too late,’ Donald Walker said gloomily as he stood beside his son’s workbench one day in October. Everyone in the factory was working flat out and most were doing overtime every evening. ‘We should have been doing this years ago.’

Hitler had annexed Austria earlier in the year with hardly a murmur of dissent and now his attention was turning to Czechoslovakia, a country created by the Versailles Treaty after the Great War and which contained, in Sudetenland, three million German-speaking people. In an effort to avoid war Neville Chamberlain had flown to Munich to meet Hitler and come back with a document they had both signed. It was not a treaty but an agreement not to go to war so long as Germany was allowed to take over Sudetenland. The whole country gave a huge sigh of relief, but it did not stop the preparations. Only the foolhardy believed it meant peace was assured.

‘I think you had better get that wife of yours out of London,’ Donald added. ‘We’re right on the docks here and a prime target for the bombers.’

‘I’ve told her all that, but she won’t have it. She won’t leave me and she won’t leave her home, especially after Mr Chamberlain came back from Germany waving that scrap of paper and saying it meant peace in our time.’

‘Do you believe that?’ his father asked him.

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t, but Julie has been brought up to believe implicitly whatever those in authority tell her and she is convinced there will be no war. I don’t want to worry her by shattering her faith, especially now.’