CHAPTER 65
I was really at a loss without her, and when Pete left shortly afterwards to take his boy down I was almost lost. It was an education, in a sense. I had spent so long on my own after Tricia had been taken I had felt that I was comfortable in my solitude, that I didn’t need people around me. I realised just then, as the house emptied and the nearest of my friends headed south, that I had merely been numb, not comfortable. Just because you lose the feeling in a hand or other bit doesn’t mean it can’t get damaged, just that the pain doesn’t tell you if it does. That had been my life: numbed, no pain, but steadily being damaged by my isolation.

Susie, Val, Pete and his boy; they had shaken me out of loneliness and brought the feeling back to me. In the end, it meant that I could hurt again, and I did as I rattled round the empty, silent house.

Work was better, for the lads were there, I had Darren to train in his proposed new role, and Doreen stayed chirpy in an obvious attempt to cheer me up. She brought me in a cup of tea and some biscuits two days after the girls had left me.

“Mr Barker… You miss her, don’t you?”

I tried a laugh, but it didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped.

“Is it that obvious, Doreen?”

“Well, not really my business, like, but, well, aye. It is a bit”

“Well, not surprising, really. Got a bit used to her company”

“Aye, and I’ve got a bit used to things going a lot smoother here! What are we doing for a welcome back?”

“Eh?”

She laughed. “Don’t take this wrong way, oh mighty leader, but sometimes you are not quite the most eloquent man on planet! Lads miss her an all, you know. Now, I’ve been doing a bit reading—no, we all know what this trip is about, and I wanted to know how long I’d be covering for her”

She sighed, and then grinned, taking her glasses off.

“I remember first day, Mr Barker, when you says she’s a bookkeeper, back when we had nowt but carrier bags with bits of paper and old Red and Black ledgers. She changed this place, brought it up to date. I used to dread coming in, for it was always playing catch-up with things. Now, well. She’s left this place so it almost runs itself. Not that it does, I mean; I’m not looking to lose my job!”

She fumbled in the pocket of her cardigan, and brought out a package, about six inches long, wrapped in tissue paper.

“Trevor did the metalwork, and we had word with that painter as does the cans and plates and stuff. Your call, Mr Barker, but I think this is just, well, recognising facts. I hope you don’t mind”

She unwrapped it slowly, and it was a hand-painted sign for a desk: Susie Lockwood, Office Manager, Dobbs and Barker Marine. I laughed then, honestly this time, and Doreen flushed.

“No, lass! Not laughing at you! Just, I were talking to someone a little while ago, and that is what I called Susie, without thinking, but when I DID think, well; happen it fits her”

That brought a smile. “Lads thought, you know, leave it on her desk for when she comes back. Going to be quite a while before she’s up for work again, according to stuff I’ve read”

“Aye, it will. Anyway, she’s due back home in next couple of days”

“Well. One bit of advice, then. I speak as someone who’s been under doctor for, you know, women’s things, and women’s things they are and should remain so. Not for men, if you take my meaning. Let her mam do the job she’s there for”

I looked at her hard, surprised by her acceptance, remembering the double take she had so clearly had when first meeting my girl, and she caught my expression.

“Yes, I know, but I don’t care how she started out. That’s a lass, a proper lass, no doubt there. I can see it, lads can see it, her young man obviously sees it. So it’s women’s things, Mr Barker, things for women to deal with. Now, my Terry and me, we’re having a proper Sunday dinner this weekend, and there’s a place for you there. You won’t be eating properly without lass. I know you!”

So I did eat properly that day, and on the Wednesday Pete delivered her and Valerie to my door. She was sweating lightly as she gingerly stepped out of the car, and Pete took her arm as she walked slowly into the house.

“How are you with stairs, lass?”

“I get there, Gerald, just not as quick as I used to. Fuck, it hurt! Sorry, Mam, Gerald. Can I just stand for a while, have cup of tea, get legs working again?”

We walked into the living room, and she stopped dead.

“Where the hell—when”

She was pointing at the sofa-bed that was now in our living room.

“Lads at work borrowed it, brought it round. Partly Doreen’s idea. She said you’d not be wanting to climb stairs, and you’d be up and down at all hours, so, well, there you are. Folds up right easy”

She stepped over to hug me, an embrace I gave back as gently as I could.

“Gerald Barker, I could marry you!”

“Er, think there’s a lad ahead of me in queue. He’s on his way over. Said I’d call when you were back”

She laughed. “Mobile phones, Gerald. I already called him, so get your jacket. Pete’ll drop us off at ship, and Andy can do rest”

It took weeks before she was fully back on her feet, and only a few days in she was demanding that Doreen load ‘files’ onto a ‘stick’ so she could catch up on the office work, which was so typical of her. Once she decided to do something, she went at it full-on, with total commitment. She said that it gave her something to do besides watch ‘crap telly’, but I didn’t care. She was home, and it was indeed a home once again. Her mother and fiancé were in and out, as well as Pete, obviously avoiding his own empty house, and I was kept on my toes that summer by a combination of a record number of customers and what Susie called Darren’s ‘developmental needs’. To give him his due, he picked things up quickly, which wasn’t really a surprise. His self-confidence was increasing on an almost daily basis, but he seemed to be avoiding becoming cocky about it. He reminded me of old Mr Dobbs’ instructions to me about laying everything out neatly, in order, so that what came off could go back on, just more easily.

It was Darren who came up with what turned out to be another profitable line, and not only did we start offering maintenance services for Bolinders and other less modern engines, but Trevor and Jack started their own courses at the local college. Not to learn how to repair things, but to get the necessary certificates to be able to train other lads in the work and sign them off with their own bits of paper. Dobbs and Barker had come a long way since I had first arrived, and it moved on even further when Pete agreed a joint venture for one way hire.

We already had the agreements with other yards to take in their boats and vice versa, but with Pete’s assistance we could now offer a pick-up service for our customers. They hired a cruiser, took it away through the waterways to another yard, and parked their car in Pete’s yard. When they got to their destination, another yard took in and fettled the boat while Pete sent a minibus or people carrier to collect the customers. Back to his yard, into their car, and away. He took the fees, and we pulled in more trade by being able to offer the service as part of the hire package. Susie called it a ‘win-win’. To be honest, I don’t think our bank manager was unhappy, either.

I don’t know quite how, but suddenly it was November, and we were setting up for a big day, two in fact. Remembrance Sunday was to be followed by Susie’s first day back at work, and we had a full set of visitors for the ceremonies on the first. Ernie was first to arrive that Saturday, followed by Rodney and Matthew, with a frail-looking Maurice. I gave him the sofa-bed long since vacated by Susie, and we adjourned to Betty’s for an expensive afternoon tea.

Susie was bubbling away, life shining from her eyes as she greeted each of her friends in turn, and at least some of the conversation didn’t revolve around her upcoming wedding.

“Got to get paperwork first, like. Get wed as legal woman, not anything else”

Laughter, warmth, companionship, together with so much we had all shared in such different ways. I remembered my thoughts when Susie had left, and smiled. Life was actually sweet after all.

The next morning, we donned our Legion rig, and I settled the old black beret onto my head once more. We formed up by Clifford’s Tower, the band this time being from the Royal Armoured Corps, which sort of fitted our sense of entitlement, and at 1029 hours we were called to Order.

“By the left---“

Susie walked with us, pushing Maurice’s chair as we followed colours and flags, band and serving personnel from the Forces. We made our way slowly through the city, heading for the memorial gardens, Pete with us wearing a ‘friends’ REME tie along with his poppy. We took our places at the Memorial Gardens, some of the lads needing chairs, and the gun boomed out for the start of the two minutes.

It was always the same for me. I bowed my head, and saw the faces not just of Harry and Wilf, but also of that young officer who had died calling in a barrage for us, and those poor souls in that awful place where the stench had stayed with my lost friend till he could bear it no more. I thought of Bob, and of how this world would not just have accepted him but, it seemed, almost to have embraced him if he had simply been born a few decades later.

I thought of young Pete, his life destroyed, and I thought of both Dads, and of my life’s love.

This time, though, I held to the brightness, to Susie, Darren, Doreen’s generosity of spirit, the love Val and Andy were showing, our friends in Belgium, and more than ever I realised how absolutely necessary it had been for me and these other lads to have done what we could to stop the Germans.

The silence ended, the wreaths were laid, and the Last Post blown. Fine words were said, hands shaken, and over a few pints we swapped the stories that didn’t come in the night, the ones that brought smiles and the other, brighter sort of tears.

Maurice died in the car on his way back home.