was a silence between them and then Meg said, ‘What’s she like, this woman?’
Nicholas shrugged. ‘Just a woman, you know. I only caught a glimpse of her. Sort of ordinary.’ He paused and then asked her, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing for now,’ Meg said after a moment. ‘If your dad and Uncle Robert are right and this is just a fling, it will all blow over. I might make things worse if I say anything now. I think I’ll wait and see. And, Nicholas, I don’t want the others to know anything about it.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ he promised.
By March, which had come in like the proverbial lion sending icy gusts of wind funnelling down the street, Charlie began leaving the house on Saturday nights as well as being late on Fridays, and then he started disappearing on Sunday afternoons too. By the time the month was drawing to a close, he was out a couple of nights in the week as well. Meg said nothing, but Billy and Sally had begun to ask where he was going.
‘Just out,’ Charlie would answer them. ‘When a man works all week, he values time to himself.’
Meg had thought he might be reverting to the drink, but she never heard him staggering about the place, and he seemed to have no trouble getting up in the morning. Although she still worried that his lady friend might be unsuitable, she had to confess that she’d seldom seen her dad so cheerful since her mom died. He came home from work with a smile on his face and whistled around the house, or sang snatches of songs like he used to do.
One evening, Meg decided to tackle her dad about the mysterious Doris Caudwell for all their sakes. The night was a cold one and she pulled the curtains tighter across the windows and shook more coal onto the fire, then put the wireless on for company so that big band music filled the room as she settled to wait for his return.
By the time Charlie came home, Meg was asleep, but she roused herself as he came in the door. She was still bleary-eyed as she snapped off the wireless and faced him.
‘What is it?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Is everything all right? The children …?’
‘The children are fine,’ Meg said.
‘So, why are you waiting up?’
‘To ask you something,’ Meg said. ‘Something that I shouldn’t have to ask you.’
‘What?’ Charlie asked, but he knew full well what his daughter was getting at and she knew it too.
‘Oh, come on, Dad,’ she snapped impatiently. ‘Don’t play the innocent. Are you going out with a woman called Doris Caudwell, or aren’t you?’
The red blush that flooded over Charlie’s face told its own tale, and Meg felt as if a lead weight had settled in her stomach.
Shamefaced, her father nodded. ‘Who told you?’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Meg said, and added a little bitterly, ‘It could have been any of a number of people, because one thing I am pretty sure of is that it wasn’t a secret to anyone but us, and for the life of me I can’t think why that was.’
‘I didn’t want to upset you.’
‘D’you think this is any less upsetting?’ Meg snapped. ‘And when did you intend to tell us, or were you just going to install her in the house as your wife and the children’s mother without any sort of consultation about it at all?’
‘Of course not,’ Charlie said. ‘I just thought you might feel it too soon after your mother.’
‘If you feel that way, you shouldn’t have begun any sort of relationship,’ Meg said icily.
‘I … I don’t feel that way,’ Charlie said. ‘At least … goddammit, Meg, you know what I thought of your mother, and when she died I didn’t go looking for someone else or anything.’
‘So how did you meet this woman?’
‘I met her in the Swan where she had come in for a drink with another woman,’ Charlie said.
Meg curled her lip. Women who went into public houses alone were considered to be the lowest of the low.
‘Now don’t look like that,’ Charlie censored. ‘She’s not loose or anything like that, but the other woman was going to see her chap and didn’t want to go into the pub alone, and as Doris is a widow she agreed to go in with her. She is actually quite alone in the world, for she has no children and no siblings, and neither had her late husband. Their parents are long dead. She’s also a stranger here, drafted from Yorkshire.
‘You seem to know a lot about her from one meeting.’ Meg commented.
‘That first time we met it was your uncle Robert who did most of the talking.’
That surprised Meg. ‘Why?’
‘Because she works at the same place as Rosie,’ Charlie said. ‘She doesn’t know her. Apparently they work in different areas. Doris actually doesn’t know many people, unless you count the woman she came out with. She says she hasn’t had time to make friends yet.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘She has a small flat on Bristol Street.’
‘Why did she come here from Yorkshire?’
‘Because she said she didn’t mind where she went,’ Charlie answered patiently. ‘See, she was a seamstress and not getting that much money and, as she said, she had to provide for herself after her husband died. So when she heard that war-related work was paying more, she made enquiries. They asked what she could do, and when she told them, they asked if she wanted work near to home. She said she didn’t mind where she went and so she arrived here.’
‘So that was the first time you saw her,’ Meg said. ‘So why didn’t you leave it there?’
‘Because when she was there again the following week, I couldn’t just ignore her.’
‘And you asked her out?’
‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘I did,’ and added a little defiantly. ‘To tell the truth I felt a bit sorry for her. And I know how she feels because I’m often lonely myself.’
The plaintive note in Charlie’s voice gave Meg a bit of a jolt, for she had wondered before if her father might be lonely and she felt sorry for him until he said ‘Do you know, I really envy Robert and Alec going home to loving wives and warm beds.’
‘Oh,’ Meg snapped ‘Is that what you were hoping for: a warm bed with a woman you had just met?’
‘’Course not,’ Charlie said. ‘There was nothing in it then. Just two lonely people being company for one another. We saw a film at the cinema in Bristol Road and popped into the Trees for a quick drink afterwards and that was the extent of it.’
‘But it didn’t stay like that?’ Meg
