the doctor was annoyed by her presumption, he wasn’t about to make a fuss. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that in her quiet way, Dottie controlled all their lives and for the sake of his own sanity and peace of mind, it was important for him to get their in dispensable daily woman back to his wife as soon as possible.
By the time they arrived at the house, Mariah Fitzgerald was in a complete flap. She’d got Keith running in and out of the house and into the marquee (a large ex-army tent set up on the lawn), with the large dinner plates from her best service, as well as some plates she’d found on the larder floor.
‘Don’t drop them, whatever you do,’ she’d screamed at her already nervous son. Keith tripped over the guy ropes and she almost had a fainting fit.
‘You forgot the china, Dottie,’ she said accusingly as Dottie stepped out of her husband’s car. ‘It’s a good job I went into the marquee to check. The tables were bare.’
Dottie said nothing but she was bristling with anger. Dr Fitzgerald disappeared somewhere in the direction of the surgery and she heard a door closing. She hung her coat on the peg on the back of the kitchen door and looked around in dismay. She’d expected interference to some small degree but not on a scale like this. Her beautifully organised kitchen was in total chaos.
Mrs Fitzgerald had been going through everything, even the tins in the pantry. The lid of the tin containing the strawberry shortcake was on the draining board, the tin containing the brandy snaps had the lid from the love-all cake on the top and vice versa. The tin of butterfly cakes had no lid at all. Dottie couldn’t even see it. When she’d left that afternoon, the dinner plates, on hire from Bentalls in Worthing, had been in their boxes under the shelf in the pantry. They had since been pulled out and the shredded paper used as packing was now strewn all over the kitchen worktops and the floor.
With an exaggerated sigh, Dottie set about putting things to rights. The bread bins were open and some of her carefully counted cutlery was missing from the drawer. What was the point of asking someone to do something and then changing it the minute her back was turned? Mrs Fitzgerald usually trusted her implicitly. What on earth had changed, for goodness’ sake?
Keith came in and bent to pick up some more plates.
‘You can leave them,’ Dottie said tartly.
‘But Mother says …’ he began.
‘I’ll deal with your mother,’ she said, her tone a little less edgy. After all, it wasn’t the boy’s fault. He stared at her with wide eyes. She smiled and said softly, ‘You go and have your bath.’
‘I told her you wouldn’t like it,’ Keith muttered as he turned towards the stairs.
Dottie set off in the opposite direction, towards the garden and the marquee.
‘I shouldn’t have to do this, Dottie,’ Mrs Fitzgerald wailed as she saw her coming.
‘And you don’t have to, Madam.’ Dottie’s tone made her employer look up sharply. There was no insolence on her face, but she needed to let her see she wasn’t happy.
‘There’ll be so much to do in the morning,’ said Mariah Fitzgerald. ‘Why didn’t you think to put the plates out? It would save such a lot of time, you know.’
‘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
