‘They need to be washed first.’
‘Washed?’
‘I have no idea who had the plates before us, Madam,’ said Dottie. ‘I didn’t think you would want to use them unwashed so I’ve arranged for Mrs Smith and Mrs Prior to come first thing in the morning.’
Mariah Fitzgerald’s jaw dropped slightly. ‘Well,’ she flustered, as she strove to recover her composure, ‘the cutlery needs sorting out.’
‘That’s right, Madam,’ Dottie agreed. ‘And I’ve arranged that Mrs Prior will bring her little niece Elsie to do that. She’ll polish everything for ten bob.’
Mariah Fitzgerald went a brilliant pink. The napkin she was holding fluttered down onto the table. She looked around helplessly. So did Dottie. She should have come sooner. Right now, she was wishing with all her heart that she hadn’t bothered to wait for Reg when Billy Prior had knocked on the door. Now she’d have to collect up all that cutlery, take all the plates back to the kitchen and tidy up at least forty napkins before she could go back home. She might even have to iron some of them again.
Their eyes met.
‘Yes, well …’ said Mariah, patting her hair at the back. ‘I have to be up very early in the morning. The hairdresser is coming at nine thirty.’
Dottie didn’t move.
‘So … so I’ll leave you to it, Dottie.’ Mariah said, mustering what little dignity she could find. ‘As usual, you seem to have everything under control.’
Dottie watched her as she crossed the lawn and sighed. It would be at least another hour before she had everything back to the way it was before.
Reg was all set to spend the evening in the corner of the Jolly Farmer with his pint of bitter. Usually there were plenty of people still willing to buy a pint for an old soldier, but tonight the bar was almost empty. He didn’t mind. It had been a long day – Marney and the station master had had him running from pillar to post.
Marney’s chest was bad again. Too much smoking, everyone said, but Reg reckoned it was something to do with the POW camp he had been in Germany somewhere. You could pick up some weird germs in those places. Marney probably lived week in week out on the verge of starvation as well, and that couldn’t have helped. Reg might not have been in a palace himself, but his ‘rest of the war’ was nowhere near as bad as Marney’s. Even if it were the ciggies that made his cough, who could blame the poor old bugger? He probably only smoked them to forget something.
As Reg stared deeply into his pint, Oggie Wilson drifted back into his mind. He’d never forgotten poor old Oggie, and when he heard what had happened to him, he’d felt as sick as a pig. Reg never spoke of his own experiences of course. Better to let sleeping dogs, and all that, but when he’d married Dot in ’42, he knew he’d fallen on his feet. A nice little place right near the sea, two women at his beck and call – what could be better? Dottie had stuck by him all through the war and it was only the thought of coming home to her that kept him sane while he had been stuck in that bloody prison. He’d finally come back in ’48. She’d given him quite a homecoming too. Some of his mates had come back from POW camp to find their missus had given up on them. Jim Pearce’s wife had presumed him dead and when he came home he found her shacked up with somebody else. A fine how-d’you-do that was, and the woman had no shame. Reg knew what he’d have done if he’d found any woman of his cheating on him. Not Jim. He’d cleared off and she was still living next door, bold as brass.
Dottie wasn’t like that. Dottie had waited and she’d been faithful. Reg took a long swing of his beer. Nah, Dottie would never do anything bad. She was perfect. Too bloody perfect, that was her trouble. Taking her on the doorstep would have added a bit of spice to life. Why did she have to go and mention the old trout? Bloody Bessie with her silly hats and passion for cowboy films, she ruined everything. Even the thought of her made his stomach turn.
He’d had the shock of his life when Aunt Bessie had died and he’d never felt the same since. It had done for his marriage as well. He’d tried to get it together but he just couldn’t do it any more. Before the war, he could keep it up for hours, especially if he knew Bessie was listening on the other side of the paper-thin walls. He was a bit rough at times but he’d had enough women to know most of them liked it that way. But ever since … well, since then he just couldn’t do it any more. Not with her, anyway.
Dottie had never reproached him for it. She was too anxious to please. Sometimes he wished she would. He took another long drink. Trouble was, she never fought back. Whatever he dished out, she just took it. Well, that was no fun, was it? She was beginning to bloody annoy him all the time now.
‘Hey up, Reg. You coming outside?’
He put his empty glass down and looked up. Tom Prior from the Post Office was leaning in, holding the door open. ‘We’re bowling for a pig,’ he cajoled.
‘A pig?’
‘Nice little thing,’ Tom went on. ‘Fatten him up and he’ll be a lovely bit of bacon when Christmas comes.’
Taking in Tom’s weedy frame, the thought crossed Reg’s mind that he could do with a bit of fattening up himself. Naturally skinny, he and that fat cow Mary looked like Jack Sprat and his wife.
Reg shook his head. ‘Nah, I’ll settle for a bit of peace and quiet.’
‘Peace and quiet!’ Tom chortled. ‘You’ll get plenty of that when you’re in your pine box and staring at the lid. Come on, man. Let’s be havin’ you. I’ll stand you another pint and it’s only two bob a go. All in aid of the kiddies’ home.’
Reg rose from his chair. ‘I don’t know why I listen to you, Tom Prior,’ he grumbled good-naturedly. ‘I never bloody win anything.’
Dottie had worked hard and now she was very tired. The marquee was almost back to the way it had been and the kitchen was nearly straight when Miss Josephine, the bride to be, came downstairs in her dressing gown and wearing slippers.
She wasn’t exactly a pretty girl. Her nose was slightly too long and her mouth definitely too wide; but Dottie knew that just like any other bride she would look radiant in the morning. Right now the whole of her hair was kiss-curled, each one pinned together by two hair grips crossed over one another. Her face was white, and the Pond’s Cream, thick enough to be scraped off with a palate knife, hid every blemish on her skin. She was wearing little lace gloves so she’d obviously creamed her hands and, to judge by the puffiness of her eyes, she’d been crying for some time.
‘Are you making some cocoa, Dottie?’
‘I can easily make some for you, Miss.’
Dottie went to fetch the milk and a saucepan. Josephine sat at the kitchen table. ‘Oh, Dottie,’ she sighed.
Dottie was tempted to ask, ‘Excited?’ but the tone of the girl’s voice led her to believe her sigh meant something altogether different. ‘What is it?’
‘Can you keep an absolute secret?’
‘You know I can,’ said Dottie, striking a match. The gas popped into life and she turned it down.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Not sure of what, Miss?’
‘That I can go through with all this.’ Josephine produced a lace-edged handkerchief from her dressing-gown pocket and wiped the end of her nose. ‘I tried to tell Mummy, but she just got cross and shouted at me. Then she said she didn’t want to talk about it because she’d forgotten to do something really important in the kitchen.’
Ah, thought Dottie, careful not to let Miss Josephine see her lips forming the faintest hint of a smile. Mrs Fitzgerald had sent for her, not to sort out a few stray plates, but to stop her daughter