“Been away have ye?” the bartender asked, as he pushed the pint toward him. “You look half-starved. You weren’t in one of those Jap camps, were you?”
He didn’t look as bad as that, did he? “No, a German one.”
“You were lucky. The things those Japs did to our boys. No wonder they landed those bombs on them.”
Before Derek could answer, one of the men sitting at the bar spoke up.
“Shouldn’t have done that Charlie. They should have warned them first.”
“Shut up Stan or I’ll bar you. They got what they deserved and it finished the war, didn’t it?” The bartender looked back to Derek. “From around here, are ya?”
“Not really. I live out near Chertsey. I came up to see my mother.”
“She’ll be glad to have you home. So many didn’t get back.” The barman glanced at a picture behind some glasses.
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Both sons gone. My missus too. She lost her reason when the first boy died and then when we got the second one, she just couldn’t handle it. Turned on the gas. She was a great mother and the best wife a man could find. But her heart was broken.”
Derek let the barman talk. Seemed like he needed to chat as much as Derek needed to stay quiet. He sensed the barman wouldn’t appreciate him saying he wished he’d died too.
“So, what will you do now you’re home?” Charlie, the barman, asked him.
“He’ll be like the rest of the others coming home. Same as in my day. No job, no home, no trade. If you’re lucky mate, you won’t have a wife and a baby relying on ya. That was me when I got back in 1918, to a land fit for heroes. We were told the same lies you lot are being told now.”
“Shut up Stan. Nobody wants to hear the voice of doom and gloom.” Charlie filled another pint and gave it to Derek. “On the house, lad. Wish you the best of luck.”
Derek accepted the pint but took it to a table, where he could sit alone and in peace. He wasn’t there for long when a young girl came in and sat beside him.
“Looking for company?” she said.
He stared at her. She was about fourteen-years-old, if that.
“You’re too young to be living a life like this.”
“I’m old enough to give you what you want. Cheap too.”
“What’s your name?”
“What do you want it to be?” she whispered, as she moved closer. The stench of her unwashed body and rotten teeth turned his stomach.
Charlie spotted her. “Oi, you. Get out of my pub. I told you before. Go on, clear off.”
“Keep your shirt on granddad,” the girl shouted back before she winked at Derek. “I’ll wait outside.”
Charlie came over to wipe Derek’s table down. “Sorry about that, lad, those girls are a menace.”
“She’s just a child.”
“God love ‘em, they grow up fast around here. Mothers and fathers gone, either in the bombs or in the forces. They rear themselves and those unlucky ones end up on the streets with nobody to care for them. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, to be an orphan, these days.”
Derek couldn’t finish his pint. He waited until Charlie returned behind the bar and left. She was waiting, just as she said she would be. He searched in his pocket for some coins. She looked older in the dark but still skinny.
“I don’t want to buy anything. Get yourself some hot food. You look half-starved.”
Her gaze raked him from his head to his toes. “Kettle calling the pot black, that is. Where you been then?”
“Germany. Listen don’t you have someone you can stay with? Get yourself a proper job?”
“You ain’t been back long, have ya? There aren’t any proper jobs, not for the likes of me. Soldiers are finding it hard to get jobs, never mind those with no education and no home.”
Derek wished he had something more to give her but he had left most of his cash on the table in Rose Cottage.
“Be careful,” he said.
The girl wandered off, leaving Derek staring after her. It was getting late and he should go to his mother's. On second thoughts, he’d go to the hospital to find out what treatments the doctors wanted to do on his wounds. His headaches were worse than ever. Hopefully, they would have a bed for him. He’d send a telegram to his mother. He didn’t want her fussing over him.
36
September 1945
Like everyone in the country, Sally was finding it difficult to adapt to life after the war. While the war was on, everyone knew they had to keep going. No matter what, they had to keep a stiff-upper-lip for the duration, until the war was over. They would rest when peace was declared, so they could deal with the mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion that went with rationing, queueing for food and clothing, bombing raids, sheltering in Anderson shelters. They could survive anything as Peace was coming. One day.
But now Peace had arrived and yet there was still no let-up. They mightn’t have bombing raids to cope with but the situation with food got worse. Shopping queues were longer, food provisions smaller. People were snappy with one another. One radio host summed it up by saying; “at least in the war, you had the all-clear to look forward to.”
She didn’t know how Derek was. He’d sent a note to say he’d telegrammed his mother but had not seen her yet. He was a patient at St Thomas’s. He didn’t tell her the reason for his stay but did say not to visit. She took his advice, not wanting to have to face the fact he wanted a divorce. With him gone, she could pretend he had never come back and was still the man she’d married.
She pushed the door of the rectory open, desperate for Maggie’s good humor. Her friend could pull her mind out of the dark places it visited these days.
“Sally, come in. Aren’t I glad to
