style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Don’t remember me, do you? Bleedin’ hell, Rosie! It’s only been a few years!’ The newcomer grinned, wobbling Rosie’s arm to jolt an answer from her. ‘I can’t have changed that much.’
It was the young woman’s rough dialect and unforgettably infectious smile that provided a clue. The poor soul had changed; in a short space of time her acquaintance from the Windmill Theatre looked as though she’d aged ten years. If Rosie had relied on looks alone to jog her memory, she’d never have identified her. ‘Oh … of course I remember you. It’s Gertie … Gertie Grimes, isn’t it?’
Gertie nodded, still smiling. Then she gave a grimace. ‘It’s all right, nobody from the old days recognises me. Look a state, don’t I?’ She sighed in resignation.
‘No …’ Rosie blurted, then bit her lip. There was no point in lying. Gertie Grimes was nobody’s fool, Rosie remembered, and wouldn’t appreciate being treated as one. ‘Been a bloody long war, Gertie, hasn’t it?’ she said sympathetically.
‘Oh, yeah …’ Gertie drawled wearily. ‘And it ain’t done yet.’
‘There’s an end in sight, though, now the troops have landed in Normandy.’ Rosie gave the woman’s arm a rub, sensing much had happened in Gertie’s life since they’d last spoken to make her sound so bitter.
‘Perhaps we’ll be having a victory knees-up soon.’ Gertie brightened. ‘Come on, tell me all about it.’ She nodded at the little girl spinning the beads threaded on elastic strung between the pram hood fixings. ‘Beauty, she is; what’s her name?’ Gertie lifted Rosie’s hand and saw the wedding ring. ‘I suppose you married an army general to make me really jealous. I remember the top brass were always fighting over you at the Windmill. Could’ve had yer pick, couldn’t you; all the girls envied you.’
‘I was a bit of a show-off, wasn’t I?’ Rosie replied with a rueful smile. ‘Her name’s Hope; but you go first. I remember you had boys, but this isn’t a boy.’ Rosie tickled the cheek of the little girl with dark brown hair and her mother’s eyes. The child looked to be a few months older than Hope and the two little girls were now leaning towards each other sideways, giggling, to clasp hands.
‘Never got a chance to tell you I was pregnant, did I, ’cos I left soon as I found out?’ It was a fib; Gertie had concealed her pregnancy for quite some time from everyone at work, and from her cuckolded husband. ‘She’s called Victoria and she’s gone two and a half now.’
‘Crikey, you’ve got your hands full, Gertie. I know you’ve got four sons, so a girl must’ve been a lovely surprise for you and your husband.’
Gertie frowned into the distance. None of what Rosie assumed was true. Gertie now had just two children alive and, far from being delighted about another baby, her husband had knocked her out cold when he found out he’d not fathered the child she was carrying. ‘Got just the one boy now. Three of them was lost in a raid during the Blitz. Direct hit … happened before Vicky was born.’
‘Oh … I’m so sorry,’ Rosie gasped. The memory of almost losing Hope when their house was destroyed still tormented her. Her remorse over that day was a constant companion and she could see in Gertie’s eyes that the woman was battling similar demons.
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Rosie said softly. ‘I can’t know how you feel, not really, so I won’t say I do. But I nearly lost Hope so I know what it is to feel guilty.’ She paused. ‘She was nearly crushed to death in her pram on the day we got bombed out in Shoreditch. It was my fault, no getting away from it.’ Rosie cleared the huskiness from her voice with a small cough. ‘My dad had been injured in the back garden, you see, and I was so concerned about getting him indoors that I forgot all about my baby in the front room.’ It was the first time Rosie had admitted to anybody what she’d done. Not even Doris knew what had occurred that terrible afternoon.
‘I still wake up at nights howling about the night my boys were killed. I feel so ashamed,’ Gertie croaked. ‘Least you was close enough to put things right before it was too late.’ She sunk her chin to her chest. ‘I wasn’t there for them … nor was me husband … or me eldest boy. All out, we was, and Simon and Adam and Harry perished all alone in the house. Harry was just about the age Vicky is now. But it’s the other two that I ache most for. Being older, they might’ve understood and been so frightened, the poor little loves.’ Gertie swiped the heel of a hand over her cheeks. ‘Please God they didn’t suffer too much.’
Rosie put an arm about Gertie’s shoulders and hugged her tight. ‘They’re at peace now, Gertie,’ she soothed. ‘You’ve done it so far, you can carry on a bit longer … then a bit longer after that. That’s what I told myself, when I felt like beating my head against the wall to punish myself.’
‘The ambulance girls … they fought like demons to keep my Harry alive. He was protected a bit by being in his pram, you see.’ Gertie gulped back the lump in her throat. ‘But they couldn’t save him. One of the poor lasses was bawling almost as loud as me when they put the three bodies in the back of the ambulance.’
‘Oh, Gertie, I’m so sorry …’
Gertie sniffed and blew her nose. ‘Wanted to join the ambulance auxiliaries after that. Rufus wouldn’t hear of it. But I went along for the interview anyhow.’ Gertie looked crestfallen. ‘Didn’t pass the test, though. Best if you’ve got no young kids, they said, ’cos of the dangerous nature of the job.’ Gertie grimaced. ‘I told ’em about the dangerous nature of living in the East End. Didn’t go down too well with the snooty cows.’
Rosie was impressed that Gertie had tried to join the auxiliaries. It seemed such a fitting thing to do in the circumstances. She remembered how efficiently the ambulance teams had got on with things when they’d been bombed out at home. At the time Rosie had been wrapped up in caring for her daughter and had happily allowed the auxiliaries to take over tending to her father. The middle-aged woman who’d patched him up, along with a younger female colleague, had almost carried him up the cellar stairs. Though the two of them looked like butter wouldn’t melt, they’d come out with a few risqué jokes to distract John while loading him into the back of a makeshift ambulance.
With bad grace Doris had offered Rosie and Hope a roof over their heads with her in Hackney until John came out of hospital and the Council re-housed them. None of the trouble they’d suffered though could compare with Gertie’s suffering.
‘What’s your oldest lad’s name?’ Rosie asked ‘Bet he’s quite the young man now, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, Joey’s cock of the walk, all right. Thirteen, he is, and giving me plenty of lip.’ Gertie managed a tiny smile. ‘Mind you, that one always did have too much to say for himself. Gets that off his dad.’
‘I bet your husband dotes on his princess.’ Rosie nodded at Victoria. ‘My dad calls Hope his princess.’ She gave her friend a smile. ‘Best be getting off, I suppose … be late for tea. Dad’ll wonder where we are.’ Rosie regretted drawing attention to her own circumstances; Gertie would wonder why she was referring to her father so much rather than to a husband.
‘Fine reunion this has turned out to be,’ Gertie’s mumble held a hint of wry humour.
‘Glad I bumped into you, Gertie,’ Rosie said, glancing at her daughter, clapping hands with Victoria.
‘Shall we meet up again?’ Gertie looked at Rosie quite shyly as though anticipating a rebuff. ‘The little ’uns seem to be getting along. We could
