The Dover Cafe On the Front Line, page 1
For Daddy. Miss you every day.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Welcome to the world of Ginny Bell!
Letter from Author
A Recipe for Marianne’s Marmalade Pudding
Tales from Memory Lane
Memory Lane Club
Copyright
Chapter 1
August 1940
Lily bounded down the two flights of stairs from her bedroom to the kitchen, her nose twitching as the familiar scents of breakfast at Castle’s Café wafted towards her: sausages, toast, eggs and cigarette smoke. Opening the door at the bottom of the stairs that led into the kitchen, the muffled clink of cutlery and hum of conversation grew louder and the smell stronger. She wrinkled her nose, delighted that she no longer had to wash dishes and serve the dozens of rowdy servicemen who passed through the café. Much as she enjoyed the banter, she hated washing-up and she absolutely loathed being at her mother’s beck and call.
She smiled at her sister, Marianne, who pushed a mug of tea across the oak table that stood in the centre of the room.
‘How come you manage to look good even in a nurse’s uniform?’ Marianne said as she turned back to the range to flip the sausages that were sizzling in a frying pan.
‘Are you joking?’ Lily smoothed down the white apron pinned at the shoulders of her grey, short-sleeved dress. Though the tight belt showed off her waist and the colour made her blue eyes lighter, she wouldn’t have said this was her best look. All the same, she felt a thrill every time she put on her uniform. Nursing was all she’d ever wanted to do, and though the hours were long and the work mostly involved cleaning at this stage, she had enjoyed every minute since she’d started a couple of weeks before.
‘That Dr Toland was in here yesterday,’ Marianne said as she slid eggs onto a plate. ‘And it got me thinking – I reckon you’d be clever enough to be a doctor like her. What d’you think?’
‘In my dreams,’ Lily said wistfully. ‘But it’s out of reach for someone like me.’
‘Too right it is!’ A voice floated into the kitchen, and Lily’s mother poked her head through the hatch, her purple scarf clashing with the green summer dress and pink apron she was wearing. ‘Because who would end up paying for all those years of study? No point getting above your station.’
‘And what station’s that, Mum?’ Lily asked. ‘Café skivvy? You’d have me at that sink for the rest of my life if you could.’
‘Oh, that’s nice, that is. After letting you stay on at school when you could have been here helping with the family business. It’s all take take take with you. Still—’ her face softened into a smile as she squinted at her daughter ‘—at least you’re making yourself useful.’
Nellie’s head disappeared as laughter erupted from the café and a man shouted, ‘If you’d wanted a bird, Jasper, all you had to do was pop down the Oak on a Friday night.’
‘For the love of God, what the hell is that?’ Nellie’s voice rose above the hum of excitement.
Lily and Marianne went to the kitchen door and giggled at the sight of the tall, rotund man standing in the entrance. He was wearing dusty blue ARP overalls, and a black steel helmet with a white ‘W’ painted on the front was perched precariously on his bushy hair. His face was smudged and dirty, but though he looked tired, there was a broad grin on his face as he held up a large metal birdcage, inside which a grey parrot with bright red tail feathers sat on a perch, its head cocked to one side.
Marianne raised her eyebrows at her younger sister. Jasper Cane had been like a father to the six Castle children ever since their own father’s death over twelve years before and he was almost always at the café for breakfast. Even after a night that had been disrupted by air raids, he still managed to make it in for his usual plate of sausage, egg and fried bread – although these days he had to make do with just the one sausage. But he’d never yet arrived with a parrot.
Jasper looked around the crowded room with its three rows of dark wood tables, each fully occupied, as they were every morning at breakfast time, and whispered something to the bird.
Immediately, the parrot stood up straight and stamped her feet, flapping her wings as she squawked, ‘Bloody man! Bloody man!’
Jasper grinned triumphantly at the stunned faces around him, then winked at Nellie. ‘It’s a parrot, Nell,’ he said. ‘Goes by the name of Polly.’
‘I can see what it is,’ Nellie chided. ‘What I want to know is, why have you brought her here?’
‘Polly!’ Lily laughed with delight as she threaded her way through the crowded tables towards Jasper. The parrot belonged to the barber on the High Street, and as far as she knew, it was older than her. When she was small, she and her friends would often pop by to say hello, just as her nephew Donny and his friends did now.
‘Is Mr Headley all right?’ she asked with a worried frown.
Jasper’s face turned sober. ‘Smashed windows and damaged roof,’ he said. ‘He’s all right though, he’d taken shelter in Pencester along with Polly, here. Just it’ll be a while before he’s up and running again, so he asked me to find a home for this one. Just for a few weeks.’ He looked at Nellie hopefully.
‘So you brought her here for a visit before taking her back to yours, ain’t that right, Jasper?’ Nellie folded her arms.
Jasper shuffled his feet and inched forward. ‘That’d be cruel, Nell. She’s a bird as likes company, and she’d be alone all the time if I had her at mine. Gerald said when she gets lonely she starts pulling out her feathers. So, I says to myself, “Hmm,” I says. “What’s the liveliest place in Dover where folks come for a laugh and a chat and Polly won’t be lonely?”’
Nellie raised an eyebrow, although her lips twitched.
Jasper grinned back at her winningly. ‘Where there’s always a warm welcome for those in need, and a spot of food for those as is hungry?’
Nellie gestured towards a group of soldiers who worked on the anti-aircraft guns beneath the castle. ‘Lads? That sound like your barracks?’
One of the men held up his hands and shook his head. ‘No way. Our commanding officer’d have something to say about that. Anyways, it’d be too noisy for the bird. What with that bastard Hitler’s planes—’
There was a commotion from the cage. ‘Bloody man!’
A man in sailor’s uniform sitting at another table had just taken a gulp of tea, and he spat it out across the table.
‘Did that bird—’ He couldn’t continue as he thumped the wooden table with the palm of his hand, making the plates and crockery rattle as he snorted with laughter.
Jasper threw his head back and guffawed. ‘Mate! If you say Hitler—’
‘Bloody man!’
‘—anywhere near Polly, this is what she does. She’s a very special bird, Nell. People love her and she’ll bring in more custom.’
Nellie glanced around. ‘If it’s not escaped your notice, the place is heaving morning, noon and night. And anyway, you can’t have a bloody parrot in a café! All them germs and feathers and stink!’
Jasper put his face close to the bars. ‘What do you think, Pol? You’ll be a good girl for Nellie, won’t you, love?’ He stuck his fingers in the cage and Polly nipped the end of one of them gently.
‘Good girl,’ she repeated. Then she looked at Nellie and held her wings out, as if she was pleading.
‘See? You reckon you can house a poor homeless parrot?’ He walked over and put an arm around Nellie’s plump shoulders, smiling down at her.
For a moment, Nellie smiled back, but then she pushed his hand away. ‘No! I will not have that filthy thing in here creating havoc and more work!’
‘Oh, come on, Mum. How can you not want Polly? It’s not like you to turn a person in need away,’ Lily pleaded.
‘Maybe so, but that ain’t no person.’
Just then, Marianne’s son, Donny, ran through from the kitchen, stopping abruptly at the sight of Jasper.
‘Polly!’ he squealed excitedly. ‘Hey, Polly, what do you think of Hitle
‘Bloody man! Bloody man!’ The parrot flapped her wings.
Donny ran to his mother. ‘Mum, can Polly stay with us? Please!’
‘You’ll have to ask your gran,’ said Marianne, smiling at her son’s excitement. If it had been up to her, she’d have had a menagerie of parrots to stay if it made him happy. She couldn’t deny him anything since she and her mother had to rescue him just a few weeks before when his father kidnapped him from his evacuation billet in Wales.
‘Gran?’ Donny’s grey eyes sparkled hopefully at his grandmother.
Nellie looked between him and the parrot, then glanced around the café.
The people sitting near the counter started to thump their hands on the table, as they began to chant, ‘Let her stay. Let her stay.’
Soon the cry was taken up by the other customers, and Polly flapped her wings in approval, as Donny hopped from foot to foot, a pleading expression on his face.
The bell above the door tinkled then and Roger Humphries, the local police constable, walked in. ‘Is there a problem here?’ he asked, as the voices died away.
Lily glanced back at Marianne and pulled a face. Now there’d be fireworks for certain. Nellie despised Roger and deplored the fact that he still came into the café for his breakfast every day, despite her best efforts to deter him. They had both hoped that when Marianne announced her engagement to their brothers’ friend Alfie, he’d stay away, but no such luck.
Taking off his helmet, Roger wrinkled his nose. ‘I’m assuming the parrot is just visiting,’ he said.
‘And what’s it got to do with you?’ Nellie asked.
‘I don’t imagine having a parrot in a café is recommended by the health and hygiene standards that you are required to adhere to. Do you, Mrs Castle?’
Nellie bristled. ‘Let’s see what the customers think.’ She looked around. ‘All right, you lot, would you be worrying about your food if Polly were sitting over there on the counter?’ She pointed to the long, dark-wood counter that stretched from the wall to the edge of the kitchen door at the back of the room.
‘Are you kidding, Mrs C?’ a Wren called out. ‘We’ll be making trips specially to see her. She’ll be good for morale.’
‘That’s right, Mrs C. I’d say you’d be doing us a real service,’ another soldier piped up.
The bell tinkled again and Nellie’s friend Gladys walked in. Tall and thin, she was the opposite of Nellie with her dark clothes and tightly curled greying hair, but the two had been friends for years, and since Gladys’s flower stall had had to close, she’d been working in the café.
‘What do you think, Glad? How’d you feel if Polly came to stay?’
Gladys looked startled. ‘Bloomin’ heck, Nell,’ she gasped. ‘A parrot in here?’
Nellie caught her eye and nodded subtly at Roger, whose face was puce with indignation.
‘Oh . . . I’m sure she’d be most welcome?’ she said tentatively.
‘Well, now that’s settled, I’ve got to love you and leave you,’ Lily said, swinging her bag and gas mask onto her shoulder. ‘There’s floors that need cleaning and people that need tending up at the hospital.’
One of the soldiers wolf-whistled. ‘You can come and tend my—’
He got no further as Nellie strode up and gave him a clip round the ear. ‘You can keep your thoughts to yourself or take your custom elsewhere, lad. As a nurse our Lily deserves respect.’
‘Hear hear.’ Jasper caught Lily round the waist with his free arm. ‘Prettiest nurse in Dover.’ He stared down at her affectionately. ‘After all your hard work, I’m proud of you.’
‘Hey, Jasper, that’s not a tear, is it?’ Lily teased.
Jasper blushed. ‘Just a bit of dust, love.’
‘You big softy.’ She stretched up and kissed his bristly cheek. ‘And hopefully see you later, Polly Parrot,’ she said, putting her fingers through the bars of the cage.
Polly put her head on one side and flapped her wings gently. ‘See you later,’ she repeated.
Lily laughed and pulled open the door, stepping out onto the pavement beside the market square. Then, pausing, she poked her head back inside the café. ‘Oh, and don’t forget I’ll be bringing Pauline back to stay later, will you, Mum?’
‘I’ve not forgotten, love. How long’ll she be here?’
Lily shrugged. ‘Couple of weeks, I think. That’s if Hitler doesn’t—’ She laughed as, predictably, Polly let out a loud squawk. ‘Bloody man!’
Giggling, she shut the door with a bang.
*
As soon as the bell stopped tinkling, Roger announced loudly, ‘If that bird stays here, I may be forced to report you to the relevant authorities.’
Nellie sighed loudly. ‘Roger, if you don’t like it, go somewhere else for your breakfast. Our Marianne is an engaged woman now, so there’s no point hanging around here anyway, cos she won’t be changing her mind.’
‘So does that mean it’s a yes, Nell?’ Jasper said hopefully.
‘I’m warning you, Mrs Castle, that it would not be advisable—’
Holding the hapless policeman’s gaze, she said, ‘Yes, I think it does, Jasper.’ She smiled challengingly at Roger then turned and indicated the back of the room. ‘Stick her behind the counter and me and Glad’ll make a space for her by the wall. But any nonsense from you, Polly, and you’re out on your beak, you hear me?’
Polly lifted her wings, as though she was shrugging.
Nellie gave a satisfied nod. ‘Just so long as we understand each other.’ She looked up at Jasper and sighed. ‘The things you make me do.’
He bent down and planted a loud kiss on her cheek. ‘Ah, Nell, and what you do to me!’
Nellie shook her head, but she couldn’t help smiling.
‘’Ere, Jasper, I reckon you’re well in there, mate. If I brought a parrot home to the missus, she’d give me what for,’ a soldier said around a mouthful of sausage.
‘And I’ll give you what for if you ever refer to me as anyone’s missus again. I’m my own woman, thank you very much.’
‘Mrs Castle, as a member of His Majesty’s constabulary, it’s my duty to see that the people of this town can eat free from the fear of poisoning. And you leave me no alternative but to report this.’ Roger tried again to assert his authority.
‘And you, Constable Humphries, leave me with no alternative but to tell you to mind your own bloody business.’ She looked towards the bird. ‘What do you think of our constable, Polly? He’s worse than Hitler, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Bloody man!’ the parrot replied.
As the room erupted into gales of laughter, Roger jammed his helmet back on his head and, red-faced, wrenched open the door and stalked out.
Jasper shook his head at Nellie. ‘I reckon you’ll come to regret that, Nell. The man won’t rest till he gets his own back. And considerin’ Marianne’s an engaged woman now, he’s got no reason to stay on your good side.’
Nellie pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest. ‘I won’t be intimidated by that little runt of a man. Let him try his worst.’
Chapter 2
Lily skipped up the street, relishing the warmth of the August day. Despite the early hour, the pavements around the market square was coming to life. Over the past few weeks, as they had adjusted to living under almost daily bombing raids, people had started to realise that the German planes usually arrived around mid-morning, so had taken to getting as much of their shopping as they could before then. On the opposite side of the square, Phyllis Perkins was arranging fish on ice in the large open window of Perkins’ Fish. Next door, at Turners’ Grocery Store, a queue of people had already formed. Through the window, Lily spotted Marianne’s friend, Reenie, dropping some tins into a customer’s string bag.
She glanced up at the clear blue sky, the sun shining brightly on the cobbles of the square, the gulls circling, ready to pounce on any scraps dropped by the shoppers. Although most stalls operated inside the covered market, the steps of which were already bustling with people, in the square itself, Lou Carter, who had recently taken over the whelk stall, was setting up her trays and buckets of cockles and mussels underneath the stall’s cheerful green-and-white awning. Lily chuckled to herself, wondering what Lou and her mother would find to argue about today. The two women had a fractious relationship that apparently dated back to their schooldays, and barely a day went by when they didn’t take a snipe at each other.
