‘We’d need a proper pigsty,’ she challenged, as she switched off the light by the door and fumbled her way into bed. ‘It’ll upset my chickens.’
‘Blow your chickens,’ he snapped. ‘You think more of them than your own bloody husband!’
With that, Reg turned over, snatching most of the bedclothes. A few minutes later, he was snoring. Dottie lay on her back staring at the ceiling. First thing in the morning, she’d iron that letter smooth and put it back beside the clock.
Josephine Fitzgerald’s wedding day dawned bright and sunny. Dottie was up with the lark, but Reg had already gone to work. He had to be at Central Station in time for the 5.15 mail train in order to help load up the mail bags from the sorting office in Worthing.
As soon as she was dressed, she got out the iron. She had to stand on the kitchen chair in order to take out the light bulb and plug it in, then she switched it on and waited for it to warm up.
Somebody knocked lightly on the kitchen window. She looked up in time to see the tramp scurrying behind the hedge. He’d been here many times before but Dottie hadn’t seen him for ages. In fact, it had crossed her mind that perhaps he’d died during the cold winter months, or maybe moved on to another area.
Whenever he turned up, Aunt Bessie always gave him something, a cup of tea or a piece of bread and jam. They all knew Reg didn’t like him around so he planned his visits carefully.
Dottie popped out to the scullery to put on the kettle to make him some tea, and to get the rolled-up apron out of the drawer. Taking out the letter, she held it to her nose. It smelled of nothing in particular, but now that it was close up, she could see it had more than one piece of paper inside the thin envelope. There was a white sheet of paper but she could also see the edge of a smaller yellow sheet. Dottie turned it around in her hands. Who was this Brenda Nichols? Why was she writing to Reg?
Dottie and Reg first got together in 1942, on her sixteenth birthday. They’d met at a dance in the village hall and they had married after a whirlwind courtship. Aunt Bessie had paid for them to honeymoon in Eastbourne, no expense spared.
Once the wedding was over, Dottie had come back to the cottage to carry on living with Aunt Bessie, while Reg, who was in the army, had been sent to Burma. Perhaps Brenda was someone he’d met out there? All Dottie knew was that his unit was part of the Chindits. They were well respected and very brave but she had to rely on the newsreels at the pictures to give her some idea of what it must have been like for Reg because he never talked much about his experiences.
When he’d returned home three years later than most of the boys from Europe, little more than a bag of bones, Dottie had been glad to nurse him back to health. She wished that he and Aunt Bessie had got on a bit better but, try as she might, there was always a frosty atmosphere when they were together in the same room. Reg had eventually recovered physically but his war experiences left him with black moods and Dottie had to be very careful not to upset him. Was it possible that Brenda was one of the nurses who had looked after him? If she were, she would have to write and thank her.
With great care, Dottie ironed the letter flat and put it back beside the clock.
The kettle began to whistle. The tramp’s tin can with the string handle was outside on the step but, instead of being empty, there was a note inside: I did it! Thanks.
How strange. Whatever did that mean? She looked around but he was nowhere to be seen. With a shrug of her shoulders, Dottie scalded the old tin and filled it with tea the way Bessie always had. Then she cut a doorstep slice of bread and smeared it lavishly with marrow and ginger jam. She put it on the windowsill as she went down the garden with some outer cabbage leaves for the pig and some chicken food.
Motionless, the pig watched her as she let out the chickens. At first they were a little alarmed when they discovered they had a new living companion, but after a few squawks, plenty of grunting and some running about, things settled down into an uneasy truce.
When she got back to the house, the tramp’s tea and the bread were still there. Where was he? Perhaps he was afraid Reg was still around. Then she saw Vincent Dobbs, the postman, walking up the path. Obviously the tramp was waiting until the coast was clear.
‘Morning, Dottie,’ said Vince. ‘You look as if you’ve lost something.’
‘I was just wondering where the tramp was. I made him some tea.’
Vince shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen any tramps,’ he smiled, ‘but I did see some chap coming out of your gate.’
‘Who was that?’ asked Dottie, puzzled.
‘Never saw him before,’ said Vince. ‘Smart, though. In a suit.’ He handed her a letter.
‘Oh, it’s for me!’ she cried, eagerly tearing open the letter.
The letter was from her dearest friend, Sylvie. The tramp and Vince forgotten, Dottie walked indoors, reading it as she went. Sylvie was asking to come and stay for a few days when Michael Gilbert from the farm got married. Dottie had already written to tell Sylvie that Mary and Peaches and the other ex-Land Girls would be coming. Michael and Freda’s wedding, scheduled for three weeks time, might not be half so grand as the stuffy affair Mariah Fitzgerald was laying on for her daughter today, but it would be much more fun. Sylvie said how much she was looking forward to meeting up with everybody at the wedding. Dottie smiled. She was looking forward to it too. It would just be like old times.
I can’t believe that the war’s been over for five and half years, Sylvie wrote. This will be a golden opportunity to get together again. I never stop thinking about you all and the fun we had on the farm and all that blinking hard work!
Dottie laughed out loud when she read that. While everyone else had been slogging their guts out in the fields, Sylvie spent most of her time sloping off for a kip in the barn.
Write and tell me all about Freda, Sylvie wrote. What’s she like? How old is she? How did they meet? Oh, Dottie, I can’t imagine our little Michael all grown up.’
Dottie felt exactly the same way. Although there was only two years’ difference in their ages, Michael still seemed a lot younger. Freda, his bride to be, was only eighteen. Dottie didn’t know where they’d met but they had made their wedding plans very quickly; Dottie suspected that Freda might already be pregnant.
Dottie sighed. Sylvie led such a glamorous life with all those parties and important people she met, but she’d have to pick her moment to ask Reg if she could stay and that wouldn’t be easy. She knew only too well how Reg felt about her. ‘Snobby, stuck-up bitch,’ he’d say.
Dottie glanced up at the clock. 8.30. Time to go. She shoved Sylvie’s letter into her apron pocket to read again later then, humming softly to herself, she put a couple of slices of cold beef on a plate with some bread and pickles and put it in the meat safe for Reg’s dinner.
Just to be on the safe side, she propped Reg’s letter in front of the teapot on the table alongside her own hastily scribbled note – Dinner in meat safe – so that he couldn’t miss it. Then she packed her black dress and white apron into her shopping bag and set off for the big house.
Three
Mary Prior’s niece sighed. ‘Nobody’s coming yet.’
‘Good,’ said Dottie happily. ‘It must be time to put the kettle on, Elsie.’
Peaches and Mary sat down at the table.
The wedding reception was being held in the marquee on Dr Fitzgerald’s lawn. Caterers from some posh hotel in Brighton had handled all the food, but the women in the kitchen had been kept busy with unpacking and washing up the hired plates and glasses. Dottie had asked her next-door neighbour, Ann Pearce, to help out but she couldn’t find anyone to look after the kids.
Dottie looked around contentedly. She loved being with her friends and nothing pleased her more than helping to make a day special for