On the fourth day after Rosie learnt of Peter’s death, she got out of bed and went downstairs to have a cup of tea in the kitchen with Lily and Charlotte. Her little sister had the morning paper spread out on the kitchen table and she was giving Lily a resumé of the news in between mouthfuls of Marmite on toast. Neither of them made a fuss when they saw her, but simply poured her a cup of tea.
Rosie listened as her little sister read out the morning paper’s headlines. Charlotte quickly skimmed through the main stories, which were all about France and the ongoing battles, now mainly happening inland, before finding an article that was not connected in any way to Peter.
‘It says here,’ she said, taking a slurp of tea, ‘that German women prisoners are expected to land at a “British invasion port” today.’ She read on. ‘It doesn’t say which port.’ She looked up, her eyes going from Lily to Rosie. ‘It’s strange, but you don’t expect women to be prisoners, do you?’ She knew, of course, there were plenty in Nazi camps abroad. ‘Not over here, anyway.’
Lily murmured her agreement and Rosie looked at her sister with glazed eyes that had a faraway look. She didn’t appear to have heard what Charlotte had said.
‘And we’re being told to keep taking our gas masks everywhere we go,’ Charlotte groaned. ‘And we’re not to let the children play football with them,’ she paraphrased the story. ‘The Germans, it says, have promised not to use gas, but they might go “Mad dog with defeat and resort to gas warfare”.’
Lily tutted. ‘Might go mad dog – they’ve been going mad dog since the war began.’
‘I’m going back to work today,’ Rosie told them both when Charlotte started packing her satchel ready for school.
‘You sure you’ll be all right, ma chère?’ Lily asked.
‘Yes. It’s time,’ she said, simply. She looked at Charlotte. ‘I’ll see you back home this evening. Lily needs to open up shop. We all need to get back to normal.’ Even as she said the words, inside her head she laughed bitterly. As if life would ever be normal again.
‘All right,’ Charlotte said, getting up and giving her sister a hug. ‘I’ll do the tea.’
Rosie gave a smile that was heartbreakingly sad. ‘No, you won’t. How about we get some fish and chips tonight?’
Charlotte wanted to cry because her sister was trying to be happy for her sake. Again, she thought of Peter’s letter.
‘Yeah,’ she faked enthusiastically, ‘I’d love that.’
And so Rosie returned to the world – even though inside she felt as though all life had been sucked out of her being. These past few days, she had cried more than she had ever cried before. She had read and reread Peter’s letter and tried her hardest to take strength from his words. But she was beaten. Her heart felt numb. She had no more tears.
During the past four nights, when she had fallen into a fitful sleep she had not dreamed about Peter – instead she had dreamed of the day her life had changed when she was fifteen and her uncle had raped her after her parents’ funeral. Her body had been violated that night, and she had known instinctively then that nothing would ever be the same.
Thinking back to the time following the rape, she recalled how she had learnt the skill of shutting off the horror, keeping it boxed up, only allowing it space every now and again, which had helped her to survive.
Now it was time to put the boxes in her head back in their place. It was the only way she could carry on and live this wretched, godforsaken life inflicted upon her. If not for herself, then she would do it for Charlotte. She could not abandon her sister.
Seeing Rosie back at work, no one would have guessed at the grief that lay just under the surface, as heavy as the metal sheets she and her squad were welding. The women knew, of course – just as they knew it was important that they play along and create a semblance of normality. And so they toiled as they always did with speed and determination. During break times, Dorothy and Angie worked hard at being the squad’s ‘terrible two’ with their litany of jokes and jibes, pushes and shoves. As soon as they were home, though, they dropped their façades and with heavy hearts went to see Mrs Kwiatkowski, who always seemed to say the right thing – even if that was nothing.
Like Polly, Gloria suffered from feelings of guilt, even though she knew she had nothing to be guilty about. Her guilt, she realised, came from the fact that her sons had been spared – and hopefully would continue to be spared – while Rosie’s husband had not. Sitting with a cup of tea in her hand and watching Hope play in the Anderson shelter, which had become redundant this past year, turning instead into a poor person’s Wendy house, she resolved to tell Hope about Peter when she was older – and about all the other Peters who had given their lives so that her generation could grow up in a free world devoid of tyrannical masters and the terrors they brought with them. She thanked whatever God there might be that she had Bobby home – safe and sound. Deafness in one ear was an easy trade to make for his life. And as she thought of Bobby, she knew it was time to talk to him. To face up to what she had been running away from.
Similar thoughts were also going through Bobby’s head. He might not have known Peter, but he’d seen the anguish his death had brought to all the women – and especially to Dorothy and his mam. They were putting on a good show, but at work he could feel their sadness. There was nothing like death to put life into perspective, and he had to admit to himself that his mam’s new fella was a good man. There was obviously, judging by what Dorothy had intimated, a good reason why Jack had not been able to get a divorce – and it was clear there was no need to worry about Hope. She had a happy home. His worries had been unnecessary.
Lily and George’s worries, however, were far from needless. They knew Rosie was only functioning because of her younger sister. And that Charlotte still needed watching over. Her clinginess might have abated somewhat of late, but she was still fragile and now it was more important than ever that she feel secure. They resolved to push on with their efforts to make the business legitimate – to turn their beautiful bordello into what it purported to be on the outside: a magnificent family home. Lily expressed the hope that if this happened, she might even persuade Rosie and Charlotte to move in with them and rent out Peter’s home. George agreed. Neither thought it would be good to live in the shadow of the past.
Meanwhile, Kate was busy making Rosie a dress that was as beautiful as it was black. She knew that outside of work, her lifelong friend would not want to be clothed in colour. Not for a good while. Rosie was not one to wear her heart on her sleeve, but her clothes could go some way towards expressing the grief that Kate knew would cling to her for a long while yet.