The Evacuee Summer: Heart-warming historical fiction, perfect for summer reading. Katie King

feet had become suddenly icy cold.

      Peggy thought she heard a soft bump that she took to be Bill leaning back suddenly against the wall of the public telephone box. Just for a second she fancied she could smell the distinctive paint the telephone service used to paint their boxes and that always seemed to linger.

      She gathered herself together. ‘What is it you want to say? Why don’t you just come out with it? I’m sure you’ll feel better afterwards, Bill.’

      ‘Peg, I’ve been a bloody fool. A right bloody fool, I’ve been.’ There was a further glugging noise, and a small belch. ‘She’s called Maureen, Peg. Maureen, she’s called’.

      Peggy blinked in crossness at the way Bill kept repeating himself, rather than getting straight to the point, but she didn’t say anything – ‘’an she were right fun, an’ I were stupid an’ daft. An’ one thing led to another an’, well, er, yer know! Yer must know what I’m tryin’ ter say, Peg.’

      ‘I can’t say that I do know, Bill,’ replied a prudishly tight-lipped Peggy.

      Heavens to Betsy! she thought to herself when Bill didn’t reply to her immediately. Not only was he breaking to her some pretty dreadful news she was now certain, but he was doing it in a really cack-handed manner.

      ‘Bill, why don’t you put it down to me having given birth to our baby not so long ago, that dear little baby girl that we so wanted and had to wait such a while for’ – Peggy paused deliberately for added drama – ‘and this means that my mind might not right now be as good or as sharp as it once was. And so, I’m afraid, my dear husband, that you’re going to need to spell it out to me, quite what it is that that you have been up to.’

      She could hear Bill shift his weight around in the confined space almost as if the words she’d emphasised had kept pushing him in the chest. And then he made a strange noise as if he felt strangled. It was obvious that he wasn’t enjoying this conversation in the slightest. Good.

      Peggy imagined Bill as clearly as if he were right before her, standing in the public telephone box with the telephone receiver wedged between chin and shoulder, and a bottle of beer in one hand while with the other he supported his weight by leaning on the metal that made the wall at the back of the box as he stared down in shame.

      Well, at least abject shame was the look on his face that she hoped was there.

      The foreboding silence grew and throbbed between them.

      And then there was a damp croon.

      With a start Peggy realised that her husband was sobbing.

      Once, her heart would have gone out to him, but now she couldn’t believe these wet sounds to be anything other than mere crocodile tears. Any last shred of respect she had for him evaporated, as she felt Bill was crying only because he must have been caught out somehow, doing something he shouldn’t have been doing – surely this had to be the case given that he was ringing her yet only describing what had gone on with huge reluctance – and certainly not because he felt he’d made any sort of terrible mistake. It was likely he’d have been happy with the state of affairs if there hadn’t been some sort of incident or accident, Peggy told herself, and then she berated herself for thinking of the situation as in any way an accident. After all, there was absolutely nothing accidental about what Bill had been up to if he was having to apologise to his wife like this.

      So Bill bloody well should be weeping, Peggy thought. She drew her shoulders back and noticed in a mirror hanging on Roger’s wall that the reflection of her normally generous lips revealed that they had unintentionally closed in on themselves, shrinking to a harsh line that was aging and distinctly unattractive. Peggy narrowed her eyes as she tried to think of the most hurtful retort she could make, and the mirror-Peggy frowned threateningly back. It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

      ‘Be a man, Bill. You owe me that at least, surely? No true man would keep me guessing at anything else you need to say to me.’

      It wasn’t very strong as insults go, but it was the best that Peggy could come up with at that moment.

      Peggy would never have believed even a few minutes ago, before she picked up the telephone to Bill, that she could experience such an emotional chasm stretching and growing between them, or that it could feel so treacherous or so cavernous.

      It was hard to credit how once they had been so very close that Peggy had occasionally felt as if one took in a breath, then it would be the other one who would expel it.

      There had been hiccups between them in recent years but probably not more so than most couples had to endure, Peggy had told herself on more than one occasion. But with her much longed-for pregnancy, she had wholeheartedly believed that she and Bill had safely navigated choppy waters.

      Bill rallied. ‘Maureen works, er, worked, at the NAAFI as a volunteer, an’ we’d ’ave the odd drink an’ then that became mebbe a bit o’ a laugh on the odd evening in the local pub. I didn’t see any ’arm in it at first, ’onest I didn’t, Peg – yer ’ave ter believe that.’

      With a vehement shake of her head, Peggy didn’t think she did have to believe that at all.

      Bill couldn’t see her reaction, of course, and so he ploughed on. ‘But one day ’er sister were away an’, er, well, I took the opportunity of mitchin’ off camp an’ then – an’ I still don’t know how it really ’appened – I found myself stayin’ over wi’ ’er as she was very persuasive,’ he said very quickly in a voice now higher pitched than was usual.

      ‘When was this?’ Peggy made sure her words remained low and slow, and she fancied she could feel Bill’s answering wince racketing down the telephone cord straight to the old-fashioned Bakelite handset she was grasping so tightly. She felt compelled to know all the sordid details of what Bill had been up to.

      ‘She were fun, an’ ’er ’air reminded me of yours, Peg. An’ she fair set ’er cap at me, all the lads ’ere said so. It were first on Bonfire Night that we, er, um, um, yer know, Peg … yer know! An’ I suppose that I then jus’ kept on seein’ her as mebbe I thought I could get away wi’ it as I were missin’ you right badly. But it were only if I could wrangle time away from the camp – yer know wot I mean – an’ she were ’ere and you weren’t, an’ yer know that I never liked sleepin’ alone.’ Bill had to feed some more pennies in at this point, and Peggy took the opportunity to wipe under her eyes.

      His voice rang out again, ‘I didn’t want to as such— ’ Peggy snorted with contempt at this point ‘but she were insistent, although when I got back from ’ers on Christmas morning to find that yours an’ my little love ’olly had been born, and you’d ’ad such a fright, I thought enough’s enough, an’ I didn’t wan’ ter see ’er any more, an’ I told ’er so. But Maureen wouldn’t let me go, an’ then she threatened ter telephone you “to put you right”, an’ so then it were easier ter go along with it fer a while at least, while I made up my mind what to do. Er, you weren’t there an’ anyways I thought you’d never find out.’ Bill sighed dramatically as if he was in physical pain, and as if by mere chance life had dealt him a bad set of playing cards.

      And then finally he confessed in a very small voice, ‘An’ now she’s ’avin’ my baby.’

      If Peggy had thought the news of Bill having sexual relations with another woman was the worst thing she could hear, it was now hideous to discover that with the news of his forthcoming bastard offspring came a new depth of hurt and despair. She couldn’t believe that Bill could have been so stupid or so cruel.

      Suddenly Peggy felt even hotter than she had before, and then deathly cold. Her belly slid icily lower, and for a fleeting but nonetheless terrible moment her mouth flooded with saliva and she thought she might vomit. She struggled to regain her equilibrium.

      This was the worse of all possible outcomes.

      Of course she had grasped already that sexual relations with another woman was what Bill had been up to. But to hear him actually