The Back of Beyond Read online

  A speck of excitement suddenly took wing inside her, growing in intensity until she felt suffocated by it. Why hadn’t she remembered before? The present doctor had come after Tom Birnie went to join his wife in Stirling, which would have been quite late on in 1929, three months at least after her father had gone off – maybe six, because he’d had to get somebody to buy his practice before he could leave.

  So! Lexie drew in a long, juddery breath of relief, and let it out slowly. It could be Margaret Birnie! She might have been seeing another man before she left to look after her mother. Doctor Tom was often out all evening, sometimes nearly all night – like he’d been with her mother and her, Lexie recalled – and she’d have had plenty opportunities. She’d been a really pretty woman, they had two cars, and she could easily have driven miles to meet her lover. That was it, thank goodness.

  Flinging back the bedclothes, Lexie swung her feet to the floor. Why couldn’t she remember what else Doodie had said that long-ago day?

  1940–1945

  Chapter 11

  Never had Marge Finnie sat by her wireless set for so long at a time. It was an effort for her to leave it long enough to prepare the meals she took next door to her mother but could only pick at herself. While Dougal had been home over New Year, he had told her proudly, ‘Our mob’s going to France as part of the BEF.’

  ‘BEF?’ she had asked. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘British Expeditionary Force,’ he had explained.

  Out of all the people present at the time, only his young nephew had been impressed. The others had expressed their fears for him, but David, on the Ritchies’ usual Sunday visit to Lee Green, had said, ‘Gosh, Uncle Dougal, I bet you’re excited.’

  ‘I am a bit,’ admitted Dougal, adding truthfully, ‘but I’m not looking forward to it.’

  ‘Why not? You’ll be able to kill as many Jerries as you want, won’t you?’

  ‘That’s enough, David,’ Alistair reprimanded.

  Marge had realized that he was trying to prevent the four women – her two sisters, her mother and herself – from realizing that it could also work the other way, but if she had tumbled to it, they probably had, too. She had worried herself night and day ever since, making herself ill at the idea of Dougal being wounded or, worse, killed – she could scarcely bear to think about that – but since France was on the brink of falling, a new fear had blasted its way into her mind. The Germans had the BEF in full retreat, according to the reports, and it seemed likely that every last one would be taken prisoner. The announcers, usually so cheerful during their reading of the news, gave no false hope, and neither did the newspapers. It was as if, Marge thought, everyone had given up.

  But they couldn’t give up! There were thousands of men’s lives at stake, French as well as British. Surely there was some way of rescuing them? Couldn’t they be lifted away by air? When she had mentioned this to Alistair last Sunday, though, he’d said, softly but firmly, ‘Planes would be shot down before they got a chance to land, and in any case, I don’t think we’ve enough aircraft to pick up even half the men involved.’

  While she tried to prepare herself for bad news, she couldn’t help wondering what her husband might be facing if he had been captured. He wasn’t a coward, of course, and no matter what the Germans did to torture him, he wouldn’t tell them anything. She wasn’t strong like that, unfortunately. She doubted if she’d have the strength to go on with her life if anything happened to him.

  If he was spared, she’d never go dancing with Petra again, although she had done nothing wrong. Some of the servicemen were clearly out for all the fun that was going, and anything else on offer, but it was mostly girls who were the predators, Petra being one of the worst. She dressed up to the nines, full war-paint on, and instead of her usual aloofness, she was so animated she wouldn’t have been out of place in a Disney cartoon. There was no point in falling out with her for what she had said about Dougal, though; she wasn’t worth it.

  Marge was angry at herself now for doubting her husband even for one minute. He would never play around with other women. She trusted him. She would always trust him … for as long as she lived … if he came back to her.

  Tears were slowly edging down her cheeks when she heard the back door opening and knowing it was her mother, she pulled out her hankie and hastily tried to wipe them away. ‘Mum! It’s not dinner time yet.’

  Rosie, bothered with arthritis now, made her stiff way across the room. She didn’t intend to let her daughter swamp herself in misery. ‘We won’t get any dinner at all if you can’t tear yourself away from that thing! Anyway, I came to give you the latest news.’

  Ashamed at being caught weeping, Marge said sharply, ‘I’ve heard all the latest news. Why d’you think I’m sitting here?’

  ‘I mean the latest latest news,’ Rosie said airily, unfazed by her daughter’s reception of her. ‘Alf was telling me somebody in the grocer’s knows somebody who’s got a cousin with a boat on the Thames, and he told his cousin – the one with the boat told the one Alf knows – there’s a whole lot of them there …’

  ‘I know! Dougal used to take me to Windsor to see them. But what …?’

  ‘Just listen! They’ve all been asked to help to get the soldiers off the beaches.’

  ‘But little boats like that could never …’

  ‘Well, that’s what Alf heard, and he seems to think it could work.’

  ‘Alf’s an old woman,’ Marge sneered. ‘He believes everything anybody tells him.’

  ‘He’s been a good neighbour to me,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘Since your Dougal went away, he’s been keeping my grass cut, and he gives Peggy a hand to weed sometimes.’

  ‘I know, but don’t you think he’s a bit … soft? In the head, I mean.’

  ‘He’s got all his marbles, and he’s not a pansy, though some people think he is. It was his mother’s fault he never had a girlfriend, you know – she kept him running after her till the day she died – and he thinks he’s too old now. But he can only be … what … in his late forties?’

  ‘More like his fifties.’ Marge couldn’t keep her annoyance up any longer. ‘Um … will I put on the kettle for a cuppa?’

  ‘Yes, love, that’d be nice. And I’ll have my dinner here, if that’s all right with you? You won’t miss anything, I’ll listen to the wireless the time you’re getting it ready.’

  It was several hours before reports came across the airwaves that a great armada of boats of all shapes and sizes had started on the unenviable task of evacuating as many of the troops stranded on the Dunkirk beaches as they could.

  ‘Now do you believe Alf?’ Rosie was pleased that her neighbour had been vindicated.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Marge muttered, ‘but I’ve been so worried about Dougal I couldn’t think straight, but I feel better now I know he’ll be home soon.’

  ‘You don’t know for sure that he’s at Dunkirk, though?’ Rosie felt obliged to remind her daughter of this.

  ‘I feel sure he is, Mum, but I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.’ Marge was relieved that her mother left it there. She wasn’t sure … of anything. For all she knew, Dougal could be lying dead somewhere. She strangled this thought before it suffocated her. He couldn’t be dead. She’d have felt it in her bones, in her very heart, whereas all she felt was this uncertainty, as though she’d been caught up in a sort of limbo.

  ‘Your sister-in-law must be very worried about Dougal,’ Manny remarked on the second day of the evacuation.

  ‘I thought she might be glad of some extra support, so when Gwen said she was going to see Marge, I told her to stay with her till they found out, one way or the other. David and Leila know to go to Mrs Wright next door when they come home from school. She took them in yesterday.’

  ‘You should have told me, my boy. You could have closed the shop early. And you must go home in time for them coming out of school today, and for as long as dear Gwen is away. You do not want to impose on your neighbour, do yo
u?’

  ‘She doesn’t mind. She loves the kids.’

  Alistair would have liked to ask Manny if he was well enough. For some time now he had noticed how frail the old man was becoming, how grey and crepey his skin was, but he knew better than say anything. His employer did not take kindly to being reminded of the passage of time, but he shouldn’t be living alone at his age. Manny was one of the old school, who considered nothing was wrong with them as long as they could stand on their own two feet. The weakness in his legs had stopped him from going round the markets, but it hadn’t stopped him from being in the shop from just after nine each morning, though Alistair had told him he should take things easy.

  He’d been wondering if he should sound Gwen about asking Manny to live with them, so that she could keep an eye on him, but he had better wait till this business at Dunkirk was over. He gave a shivering sigh.

  Manny looked at him compassionately. ‘You are also fearful for Dougal?’

  ‘If anything happens to him,’ Alistair muttered, ‘it’ll be like I’ve lost part of myself. We’ve been friends since the day we started school. We did everything together, we came to London together, we shared a bed, even married into the same family. If he doesn’t come back, it’ll tear the heart out of me – out of all of us.’

  Manny nodded his understanding. ‘I think you should be there when your children come out of school today. Go home now, pack a few things, and take them to Lee Green. It is better for all of you to be together in this worrying time. If it is bad news, you will help each other through it, show your sister-in-law that she is not alone in her grief. Oh dear, perhaps you think I am morbid, talking like that, but if we prepare ourselves for the worst it helps to ease the pain, and if the worst does not happen, so much the better.’

  ‘You know, Manny, I think I will go to Lee Green today, that’s if you don’t mind?’

  ‘I do not mind. In fact, I feel like going with you.’

  ‘You’re welcome to come …’

  ‘No, no, my boy. Although I regard myself as one of your family, I am not truly a member. Tell dear Marge that I am praying for Dougal’s safety, and do not come back until you know for sure what has happened. I can cope, I am not finished yet.’

  By a strange quirk of fate, Leila was alone in Marge’s house when the soldier walked in and, in spite of several days’ growth of beard and the strain evident in his grey face, she recognized him immediately and flung herself at him. ‘Uncle Dougal! It’s you!’

  Hoisting her up in his aching arms, he gave her a bear hug. ‘Aye, my lamb, it’s me! Where’s everybody?’

  ‘They’re all in Grandma’s. I didn’t like seeing Auntie Marge crying, so I came here to read my comic for a while.’

  He set her down gently. ‘We can’t let your Auntie Marge cry any longer, can we? We’ll go and surprise her, eh?’ Catching sight of himself in the mirror above the fire, he pulled a face. ‘Maybe I’d better wash and shave first, eh?’

  The little girl waited, excitement bubbling inside her at the thought of being the first to know he was safe. She would have liked to run and tell the others, but knew that it would spoil his surprise. It had been awful, watching Auntie Marge crying, and Grandma and Mum trying to comfort her though they were nearly in tears, too. She had wondered why they were so sad when they didn’t know what was happening. They shouldn’t have been so sure Uncle Dougal was dead. If she could remember that bit she’d read somewhere … what was it again? Where there’s life, there’s hope? No, that didn’t fit. Where there’s hope, there’s life. That was it, and she had never lost hope. That was why Uncle Dougal had come home safe.

  Grown-ups were funny – not ha-ha funny, just queer funny – and it hadn’t been only the women. Dad had been gripping his mouth tightly, and he’d blown his nose a few times before she came out, like he was trying not to cry. She loved Uncle Dougal nearly as much as she loved her Dad, but she hadn’t cried, though she might have, if he hadn’t come back.

  The adults proved to be more than funny when she and Uncle Dougal walked into her Grandma’s house. Auntie Marge cried louder than ever when she saw her husband, and she didn’t stop even though he held her close and patted her back and whispered things in her ear. Grandma was dabbing at her eyes, and Mum was wiping her cheeks. Worst of all, tears were running down her father’s face, but he was gripping David’s hand to stop him from jumping on Uncle Dougal’s back, which he was likely to do, but it wouldn’t be fair at this special time.

  Leila gave a satisfied sigh. She’d never seen anything so romantic as the way her uncle and aunt were kissing each other now. It was as good as the pictures, better, because she knew them, was related to them. Wait till she told her chums at school!

  Looking fondly down at her sleeping husband, Marge blessed Alistair Ritchie for his understanding of the situation. ‘Come on, troops,’ he had laughed to his children about half an hour after Dougal had made his surprise entrance. ‘It’s time we went home.’

  Rosie was horrified at this. ‘Wait till Peg gets in from work. She’ll make something to eat. Or why don’t you have a look in the pantry, Gwen, and see what there is?’

  ‘Only if we let Marge take Dougal next door.’ Alistair had stood his ground. ‘Can’t you see he’s dead on his feet with exhaustion?’

  ‘I am a bit tired,’ Dougal had said, which was when his wife had fully realized the ordeal the evacuation must have been – he never ever admitted to being tired.

  As they entered their own house, she had said, ‘I’ll run a bath, just the regulation five inches, of course.’ He followed her upstairs and went into the bedroom to undress, but in the few minutes it had taken her to put in the plug, turn on the taps and fetch a large towel from the airing cupboard, Dougal had fallen asleep on top of the bedclothes, still wearing the ill-fitting clothes he’d been given to replace his waterlogged uniform when the rescue boat landed at Dover.

  That was about all he had told them, really. Maybe he would tell her more tomorrow, or maybe he would never tell her. Maybe he wouldn’t want to be reminded of the long hours of waiting until he was picked up from the beach nor of the terrible things he must have seen. He looked so vulnerable lying spread-eagled across the bed that her heart swelled with love, and wishing that he had turned down the blankets before exhaustion overtook him, she covered him up as best she could without disturbing him. She would lie down on the settee in the living room for this one night, because she, too, had a lot of sleep to catch up on.

  Bending down, she kissed her husband’s cheek, scarcely able to believe that he had come home safely, then tiptoed out. She found an old eiderdown at the back of the cupboard at the top of the stairs – she’d meant to throw it out long ago but was glad now that she hadn’t – and rolled it round her before she lay down. All the earlier worry and the later excitement, however, prevented her from falling asleep. It wasn’t seven o’clock yet, she saw when she glanced at the clock. No wonder she couldn’t drop off.

  She hoped that none of her family would come in to see if Dougal was all right. What would they think when they found her in her nightclothes on the settee and she told them her husband was in bed upstairs? After a while, she heard soft voices bidding each other good night, and guessed that Alistair was taking his brood home. She listened in case Peggy might take it into her head to come and see Dougal, since she hadn’t seen him yet, but nothing happened, and before long, Marge herself had fallen into a deep sleep.

  ‘Poor devil!’ Alistair commented, as they walked down Burnt Ash Road to the railway station. ‘He’s been through a helluva lot, by the look of him.’

  ‘Language,’ cautioned his wife. ‘Little pitchers …’

  ‘Sorry, dear, but it’s awful, isn’t it? It makes me want to get in there and fight the bl … blinking Jerries.’

  Young David proved that little pitchers did indeed have big ears. ‘Are they always blinking, Dad? What makes them blink?’

  ‘No, no,’ Alistair smiled, ‘it’s just a
n expression.’

  ‘What does it mean, then?’

  ‘It means they’re bad. The awful Germans, or the nasty Germans. See?’

  ‘Are you really going into the army like Uncle Dougal to fight the blinking Jerries?’

  ‘No, he’s not!’ declared Gwen firmly. ‘He’s got a wife and two children to consider, not like Uncle Dougal.’

  Seven now, Leila took it upon herself to pour oil on the troubled waters, although she probably didn’t know that was what she was doing. ‘Auntie Marge was really glad to see him, wasn’t she?’

  Her mother nodded. She, too, had been impressed, and a trifle jealous if the truth were known, by the tenderness of the kisses they had all witnessed earlier, but David said, scornfully, ‘I didn’t think soldiers would be as soppy as that.’

  ‘When you fall in love with a girl,’ Alistair laughed, ‘you’ll be just as soppy as him.’

  ‘Why do you never kiss Mum, then? Don’t you love her?’

  His father’s cheeks reddened, but he said, ‘I’ve loved your Mum ever since I met her, but there were times when I didn’t show it enough.’

  ‘What times? Why?’

  Gwen ruffled his curly head. ‘You were one of the reasons, I think, and Leila. I was so busy attending to you two, I didn’t have time to show Dad how much I loved him. He must have felt neglected.’

  ‘When I get married,’ Leila said, dreamily, ‘I’ll never neglect my husband. I’ll tell him every day, every hour, every minute, how much I love him.’

  ‘I think every minute would be too much of a good thing,’ Alistair smiled.

  David blew a loud raspberry. ‘All this talk of love and kissing! Yeugh! It makes me want to puke.’

  ‘David!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘I will not have you talking like that! Where did you hear that word, anyway?’

  ‘One of the boys at school says it all the time.’

  ‘If I hear you saying it again, you’ll … you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Puke, puke, puke,’ the boy muttered under his breath, but, although they heard, they decided to ignore it.