For the rest of April, preparations for the invasion of Europe continued – both covertly and overtly. At home and abroad. In the biggest shipbuilding town in the world, there was at least one launch a week, sometimes two. Mr Havelock would regularly make an appearance, making sure his photograph appeared in the local paper. Helen would ring ahead if she was expected to attend, and if she got wind that her grandfather was to be there, she had a well-rehearsed lie that served as a believable excuse.
Short Brothers launched Empire Pendennis, Doxford’s Welsh Prince and Trevose, Bartram’s Stanrealm and Pickersgill’s another LCT before the month was out. The need to get all types of vessels down the ways as quickly as possible had never seemed as strong as it did now. The whole country could not fail but be spurred on by the number of U-boats and Japanese destroyers that were either torpedoed or bombed by Allied forces, with the number of losses at the hands of the Axis minimal in comparison. The tally proved the Battle of the Atlantic was well on its way to being won.
A similar picture was also emerging with the number of air raids being carried out on Germany and other occupied territories, including a carpet-bombing of the Yugoslavian capital of Belgrade and air raids on Romania taking place for the first time from bases in Italy. On Hitler’s fifty-fifth birthday on 20 April, the RAF gifted him 4,500 tons of bombs, which were dropped on the Fatherland, setting a new record for a single air raid.
In South East Asia, the tide of war was also turning, with the Japanese making a gradual retreat from India back into Burma. The Russians, meanwhile, were making headway in Ukraine, liberating large parts of the country, as well as in Crimea, where the Germans were being forced to withdraw their troops.
Polly added to the good news when she read the women welders her most recent letter from Tommy, which told of the first lot of repatriates – more than a thousand – arriving back in Gibraltar. Four years had passed since more than ten thousand men, women and children had been evacuated to London, Jamaica and Madeira. It was now deemed safe enough for them to return, which added to the anticipation that victory was on the horizon. A sense that was further bolstered as the country was flooded with hundreds of thousands of American troops, most of whom were housed in temporary camps in the south-west of England.
‘Oversexed, overpaid and over here!’ Dorothy whooped with laughter.
‘Dinnit get too excited, Dor,’ Angie jibed. ‘They might be over here, but they’re not up here.’
Dorothy pulled a clown’s sad face.
‘I don’t know why you’re pulling a face,’ Gloria said, ‘you’ve got Toby, haven’t yer?’
‘Yeah,’ Angie laughed. ‘One not enough?’
‘No harm in looking, is there?’ Dorothy said, putting on her hoity-toity voice.
Rosie, Gloria and Polly looked at each other and shook their heads, although they too were smiling – not at the thought of all those young Americans, but because of a rising sense of triumph, for the accumulation of such a huge number of troops could only increase the odds that the war would be won and the men they loved would finally come home.
It was because of the need to do their bit that the women’s personal lives were increasingly put on the back burner thanks to overtime and Rosie’s gentle but persistent cajoling to work just that bit harder and that bit longer.
Rosie’s work at the bordello suffered, but Lily didn’t make a big deal of it. She understood why – and that it would not be permanent. Charlotte used her sister’s preoccupation with work as an excuse to argue her case for being able to go to Lily’s after school. Knowing the stress Rosie was putting herself under in her determination to have some input in bringing her husband home, Lily took the reins and explained to Charlotte that as she was still only fifteen years old, she could not risk having her at the bordello during its hours of business. Perhaps, she said, they would review the situation when Charlotte was sixteen in the summer. It brought Rosie a temporary reprieve, for which she was thankful.
A song called ‘It’s Love-Love-Love’ recorded by Guy Lombardo and his orchestra topped the Billboard singles chart in the States and was becoming hugely popular in Britain. Helen couldn’t get the catchy little ditty out of her head and it seemed to repeat in a loop, especially when she was driving along the coast road to Ryhope to rendezvous with John and, of course, visit Henrietta. It was the highlight of her week and about the only socialising she did, apart from her visits to see Hope, which she tended to do on Sundays as it meant that she could also spend time with her father and Gloria.
The conversation she’d had with John at Pearl’s reception kept playing over in her mind until she could repeat what he had said to her verbatim. He was not concerned with adhering to the social norms expected of their class. He would consider courting – marrying – a woman like herself, a woman who many might think, as her own mother did, had tarnished herself and her reputation by sleeping with another man before wedlock, and worse still, by falling pregnant. This, Helen repeatedly told herself, was not something that concerned John, for he was driven by the heart and not society’s conventions.
The only problem, though – the rather glaringly obvious fly in the ointment – was that if this was how John felt, and what he believed, then his feelings for Claire must be purely those of love. He must be in love with Claire. Otherwise why would he be with her?
And that was when Helen’s heart would once again sink and she would fall into a troubled sleep, invariably suffering the same frustrating dream of running but not going anywhere. Perhaps her dreams were telling her that she was pursuing something she could never attain? Of course they were. But she couldn’t help herself and so she kept running – in her dreams – towards a love that could never be, certainly not while he was with another woman.
Dorothy continued to go to Gloria’s on Friday nights to see Hope and to be a buffer between Bobby and his mam. It was something Gloria wanted as much as Bobby did, although for different reasons. Bobby had a feeling his mam knew the real cause of his acrimony and, like her son, was avoiding having to talk about it.
Dorothy still believed Bobby’s stubbornness was due to Gloria’s domestic situation, and so she continued to drop scathing comments into her conversations with him when he walked her home. He picked up some of the comments if Dorothy remembered to speak to his hearing side, but some he didn’t, though it didn’t matter as he often found himself unable to take in what she was saying anyway. The way she talked, her animated expressions, the many different ways she managed to scowl, never failed to distract him. He’d imagine kissing the smooth skin on her neck when she twisted her long hair into a ponytail, only to let it go again so that it unfurled down her back. He tried to put a stop to his growing infatuation, but it was no good and was made all the more difficult because he saw her every day at work.
His squad often worked alongside the women welders. It took all of his willpower to stop grabbing hold of her and kissing her. He always persuaded Jimmy and the rest of his squad to go to the canteen when the women went, or to stay put when they ate their packed lunches by the quayside, not far from where the dock divers worked. His letters to Gordon were full of Dorothy and his work at the yard, but contained little about their mam and her new man, although he always mentioned Hope; he loved their little sister unreservedly.
Seeing his mam at work and every Friday night, Bobby wished he could make himself behave in the way he knew he should, but he couldn’t lie or fake what he felt. Just as he couldn’t hide his feelings for Dorothy. The irony was, he knew that if he could just bury the hatchet with his mam, then this might pave the way to softening Dorothy’s heart – make her see that she should be with him and no one else – but he still couldn’t pretend.
He had taken Dahlia out a few times after they had met at Pearl’s wedding reception, but he had ended up talking about Dorothy, and Dahlia had ended up talking about her boss, Matthew Royce. He didn’t know whose situation was worse: his for falling for a woman who not only hated him but was on the verge of getting engaged to another man – and a perfectly nice one at that – or Dahlia’s, for loving a man who would only ever consider taking her as a lover, never a wife.
Dorothy and Angie had both accepted it was unlikely that they would be seeing much of Toby and Quentin until after the invasion of Europe, when it was hoped the war might end. They took some solace in having been able to spend Easter with their beaux, and they would often remind themselves, when they were on their own, that they were lucky their fellas were fighting the war on this side of the Channel. Neither would have liked to swap places with Polly, Gloria or Rosie. They were pretty sure Tommy’s work wasn’t quite as safe as he liked to make out in his letters to Polly, and it sounded like HMS Opportune, the ship Gordon was stationed on, would be called upon when the invasion of France finally got going. But most of all, they would not like to be in Rosie’s shoes – not one bit. Peter really was on the very precipice of danger.