An Unsuitable Mother. Sheelagh Kelly

– that’s what I love about you,’ Nell managed to finish. ‘You’re so full of fun, and believe me there’s such a dearth of it in our house. My parents are such old fogies.’

      ‘Do you ever speculate over what your real ones were like?’ asked Billy, who knew her life story.

      Nell looked slightly taken aback, for she considered Wilfred and Thelma to be her real parents. They were the only ones she had known, and, perhaps due to their honesty in never hiding it from her that she had been adopted, she felt as secure as if she had been born to them. But then she admitted with a guilty smile, ‘Only when my own are annoying me, I wonder if the others were film stars or something exciting like that. But I don’t regard them to be real parents – after all, they gave me away, didn’t they?’

      ‘They must’ve been mad.’ He squeezed her. ‘Well, there’ll be bumper fun when we get our own house – and lots of kids.’ After sharing a tender kiss, his eyes, and Nell’s too, drifted away from each other to watch the youngsters frolick ing on the crowded beach with their buckets and spades. ‘Shall we join ’em?’

      And so they did, removing their shoes and emptying them of sand, then threading their way amongst an ever-growing colony of deckchairs to find an unoccupied patch of beach, where Billy spread his khaki blouse for them to sit on. Then, aware of other people only yards away – old men with knotted handkerchiefs to protect their bald pates and trousers rolled up to the knee, scarlet-faced wives in full corsetry, complete with handbag – in discreet but awkward fashion, both shed their clothes to reveal the swimming costumes worn beneath.

      Once settled side by side, looking out to sea over their kneecaps, Nell leaned against Billy, lost in reverie. ‘Where shall we live? London or York?’

      ‘I don’t give a fig, so long as I’m with you,’ he answered, rocking her back and forth, their flesh stuck together in the August heat.

      In total agreement, Nell imbibed a deep lungful of all the scents that wafted by – the brine, the shellfish, the donkeys, the frying of chips, the honest sweat – and felt her spirits soar as high as the brilliant sun. Squinting at its reflection glittering on the waves, she exhaled a rapturous sigh. ‘We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day, could we? I just wish it didn’t have to end.’

      ‘Me neither.’ He squeezed her gently. ‘But we’ve got most of tomorrow as well.’ Then, as his eyes swept her curves, he became aware that her shoulders were quickly turning pink. ‘Lord, you’re going to have to watch it with your delicate skin.’

      Raking her damp fringe from her brow, Nell puffed out her cheeks and fanned her face. ‘Yes, I should’ve brought a hat.’

      ‘Allow me!’ said Billy, and, reaching to his pile of clothes, he pulled out his forage cap and stuck it on her head at a jaunty angle. ‘There you are, Mrs Kelly! How do you like that titfer?’

      The recipient looked proud at first, but then she sniggered and covered her mouth. ‘Nelly Kelly – won’t Mother be delighted!’

      And they found themselves laughing gleefully again, as Billy exhorted, ‘Come on, let’s go for a dip!’ And, ignoring their audience, they ran yelling into the ice-cold sea.

      * * *

      By the end of an exceptionally fine day, which was to include an abandoned spell of jitterbugging on the dance floor, whilst Billy’s olive skin was to assume an attractive shade of tan, Nell found herself crimson. She had won a photographic award as the girl with the most sunburned back on the beach, but it didn’t feel much of a privilege now. Even a hastily purchased pot of cold cream failed to ease the fire, and by bedtime she was radiating such heat that her lover could not get near without causing dis comfort – hardly conducive to unrestrained passion. All the same, she vowed that there was no way this would prevent her from being in Billy’s arms for their final night together.

      Afterwards, reluctant to go to sleep, draped only in a sheet, for Nell’s burnt skin could bear nothing more, they lay with the curtains apart and their bodies lit by the moon, loath to miss any expression on the other’s face, holding hands and murmuring into the night.

      ‘I’m dreading leaving you,’ Billy voiced his mixed feelings, gently playing with her fingers throughout, ‘but I’m rather glad to have this chance to see my old mum’s all right.’

      Nell softly agreed. ‘You must be worried, and she about you.’

      ‘Yeah, her little baby,’ he grinned.

      Nell smiled too, knowing that he was the youngest, almost twenty years younger than his eldest sibling. ‘I’m more worried in case they send you back to Europe.’

      His tanned body heaved a sigh. ‘Well, they’ll send us sometime, that’s for certain. I’ll almost be glad in a way …’

      ‘Oh, Billy, don’t say that!’ She knew a little of what he had been through, for in their quieter moments she had coaxed it from him: how he hadn’t known where he was going or what was happening, had just done what he was told and gone where he was sent, only to end up on a beach with thousands of his comrades, their backs to the sea; there to wait for days under murderous fire until the rescue boats came; and even more days whilst others boarded ahead of him, forced to watch them sail for England, whilst in the meantime he lost everything – his comrades, his rifle, his equipment, half his uniform, and all personal possessions, even a little china ornament for his mum. As the brave boats had continued to come, he had waded out until the sea lapped his chest, only to wade ashore again when there was no more room aboard; and when his wrung-out carcass was eventually hauled onto a craft and given the tastiest jam sandwich and the best mug of tea he had ever consumed, this was promptly interrupted by a dive-bomber, forcing him once more over the side to swim for his life …

      At her first cry of anguish, Billy had lifted his head from the pillow. ‘No, I mean, if I have to fight ’em, I’d rather it be over there than on our own doorstep – oh, I don’t know what I mean, Nelly, it’s hard to explain …’ Allowing his tousled head to fall back, he hesitated for long moments, before proceeding to admit his shame over the benighted inhabitants of Belgium and France. ‘Those poor bloody wretches, thinking we’d come to save them – well, we thought we had too,’ he interjected a bitter laugh, ‘lapped it up, I did, being thought of as a conquering hero, taking souvenirs off the girls – none of them as pretty as you, mind,’ he added quickly.

      Secure in his love for her, Nell showed this with her smile.

      ‘Didn’t think we’d be running for our lives with our tails between our legs,’ added Billy, picking absently at the sheet that draped them, ‘and leaving the poor blighters to their fate.’

      ‘But you gave of your best, you’ve no need to be ashamed!’ Nell felt tears prick her eyes. Hating that raw anguish, she tried to stroke it away, her hand upon his cheek.

      He turned to meet her gaze for a second, love and pity in his eyes, before averting it to the ceiling. For how could he tell her the real story? That it had been every man for himself. That he had stepped over dead and dying comrades in his haste to escape the blazing hell of Dunkirk. How could he violate such innocence of mind? How could he share with this tender-hearted young thing the sights he had seen: of men’s limbs blown to fleshy rags, of their screaming pleas to be put down; how he had clamped his hands over his ears to try and block out their piteous cries of ‘Mother’ as they died; how he’d frantically dashed their blood and brains and bone from his uniform, as if that would erase the intense humiliation he felt as a soldier, as a man. The ceiling became a battlefield, the whole of it ablaze, he could taste again the smoke, his lungs choking with it, his ears filled with the terrifying shriek of the Stukkas and the hellish shrieks of men, his heart and body leaden with exhaustion and overwhelming loss …

      All he could murmur now was, ‘You’ve no idea how powerless I felt, Nelly. No idea, and I pray with all my heart you never do, my darlin’. Never.’

      Her fingers encased in a grip of steel, Nell tried to ease them out so that she might comfort him, making Billy suddenly aware that he was hurting