Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These

Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody is looking for something

Moving on hold your head up,
Moving on keep your head up,

Moving on.

Eurythmics, 1983.

Weston Super Mare, February 1922.

It had been hard to cry at the funeral. In the end, the young widow had managed it by thinking of the boy Larry had been, before the War, before everything, when they were kids. It was expected though, even if everyone there knew how it had been for them, had seen the bruises and said nothing, because that was 'just the way he was' or 'they were married now.' Young Mavis Pike had watched, dry eyed as the plain, cheap coffin was lowered into the cold, frosty ground, and only managed a few tears as the first clumps of earth were thrown in, remembering a 16-year-old boy with dreams of being a soldier, who caught her for her first kiss in his new uniform. From the way he described it, it would be fun, out there with the other lads, sending the Kaiser back to Berlin with his tail between his legs in a matter of weeks.

It wasn't. She had never really been told how it was at the Front, but it wasn't long before so many of those boys came back broken and scarred, or ended up in their own plain coffin just like this one. Every time Larry could come back, he seemed less of the boy she loved. When the War was over, there wasn't a shred left.

She supposed his parents had been trying to do the right thing, marrying him off to his childhood sweetheart, and she'd dreamt of it too, once. When she was alone at night, 14 or 15 years old and imagining the sort of passionate reunion that her parents probably wouldn't believe her capable of.

It never happened. They married, two weeks after her 19th birthday, and on the Wedding Night, nothing happened at all. Larry hadn't touched her, and didn't – not for weeks. It was like she wasn't really there. Mavis had tried to understand, fussing over him, keeping the house immaculate, but not really knowing what to do for the best. She wasn't the most patient girl either – never had been – and eventually, she'd snapped at him, launching into some tirade just because he wouldn't eat his dinner, and he'd hit her. She could still feel it, feel the shock and hurt inside more than the punch itself. She thought of what followed then, and the tears came, hot and bitter on her cheeks on the cold day.

Dragged into the hallway and shoved against the wall, he'd taken what he wanted, a painful, awful experience of something she'd have given freely, once. It had always been like that. Not long after, she'd found out she was expecting, but the baby didn't survive. She didn't even know if it had been a boy or a girl – there had just been blood. So much blood, and still Larry didn't seem to notice, his mind still under fire, expecting to be sent over the top.

A glimmer of light shone into Mavis's thoughts just then – it probably shouldn't, given everything else – but she was reminded of the new life inside her, a baby already older than the one she'd lost. She'd done everything, this time, to make sure this baby was kept safe, and it was working, so far. Everyone had been so nice about it too…something to remember him by…Unless, of course, it wasn't…

It had started innocently enough. Larry hadn't really worked since he came back, so Mavis had gone back to the job at the Grand Hotel on the sea front she'd had during the War. It was a beautiful place, all potted palms and cocktails on the verandah, the clientele no doubt emulating their time in India, or Rhodesia or some such in the rather brisker air of the Bristol Channel. One day, a young man had arrived – dark hair, a nice suit, posh accent. All the girls were chattering and giggling over him, giddy as schoolgirls, but although he was unfailing polite to each and every one, he had only lingered on her.

It was on that verandah, one evening, as she was clearing the glasses, that he spoke to her again, apologising for how busy she must be and how the ornate brass hairpin she was wearing suited her perfectly. Flirty stuff, the sort of thing other gents had tried on, but she'd never reacted to them like this. It felt like forever since any man had genuinely taken notice of her, and he was – not quite as polished in his delivery as he was with the other girls – like it mattered to him if she ignored him. Mavis had smiled, blushed like she was 14 again, and told him it was a good job his wife wasn't there to hear that.

The smile in response was a mixture of pain and relief. He had no wife, which although she wasn't sure she believed, Mavis found herself wanting to more than she had expected. They'd talked many more times, after that, managing somehow to learn a little of each other's lives, and one day, he'd asked to meet her. Larry was drinking by then, and it was a dangerous business, saying she was going to visit her sister, but he wasn't really interested in her explanation, or her presence.

Mavis did have to hide a smile then, as the funeral procession made its way out of the churchyard. Arthur, as she'd recently discovered, this posh chap she'd never have imagined in such a place, had ended up with her in some sailors' pub down by the waterside, cigarette ever present in his hand, rum in the other, looking for all the world like he shouldn't be there, but chatting comfortably to everyone in the room. The look in his eyes though, the slight hesitancy, were only for her. She was in love by the end of the evening, if she wasn't already, and it made the decision to stay that first night come sooner rather than later.

Smuggled in up the back stairs, Mavis had the feeling it wasn't the first time Arthur had done something like this – in fact, she asked him – banging the door shut behind her, if this was the sort of thing boys at that posh school he'd mentioned got up to, and he hadn't even bothered to deny it. She'd giggled, heady from the risk she was taking, and then suddenly stopped, aware of what usually happened next, and then – it didn't. Not like that. He'd held out his hand to her, sat her down beside him, and it was just…easy. Easy to let kisses lean her back on to crisp sheets, easy to hitch her skirts up to her waist and let him work at the many buttons trailing down between her breasts. And it had never, ever, felt like that, like it did then, ending up hot and naked with her long blonde hair sticking to her back.

It certainly wasn't like that a couple of weeks later, when Larry came home late one evening and remembered he had a wife. Mavis knew she'd done wrong, knew she broken every vow she'd made, but if this was all her marriage was, was it really as wrong as everyone said?

Somehow, they got away with it every time, her and Arthur, until Armistice Night, when he told her he had to leave, for another job on the other side of the country, but he'd left his address, and begged her to write, if she could. They spent that night together one last time, fireworks lighting the skies as she lay alongside him, clutching the piece of paper with a scribbled address in her hand. It meant the world to her that she had it, even if she'd never actually be free to go.

Then, of course, there was the whole reason for them being here. Larry had been knocked down, drunk, and died of the subsequent haemorrhage at only 23.

At least you'll have the baby…something to remember him by…how many people today had said that?

The house was quiet when Mavis eventually came back that evening, having declined her mother's offer to stay and sit with her that night. There wasn't really much else left to mourn, and she didn't want to explain. She looked at the piece of paper instead, and stroked her slightly rounded stomach.

There was some money – she'd been working, and she'd have a widow's pension. And the baby.

She knew it might not be Larry's, but no-one else did, yet. If they did though…no mother could keep such a child. She'd heard of such things, for a girl to be packed off to some dreadful place more like a prison, made to carry her baby, bear it, then have it taken away. She wouldn't see it again, and she'd never know where it went. Never know if it was happy, or cared for, or not, and never be able to do anything about it. That was her baby, her little boy or girl. The hand on her stomach stopped, and grasped it tightly. No-one – no-one – was going to take her baby away from her. She'd do everything to keep it, and keep it safe, now and always, and out of such fears, a plan began to form.

But for now, there was a letter to write. The response to that would determine its failure or success, but either way, she – they – couldn't stay here.

Not now.

Author's note: Although the song quoted above is clearly not of the time, for some reason it always makes me think of a young Mavis, on her journey, baby in her arms, taking a chance.