Chapter 6 Steps back in time to the war, and I have published it separately as "Dead Pile" having given it an M rating. Missing it out will probably not affect your enjoyment of the rest of the story.
Chapter 7
It had been one of his nightmares. He would come home and they would be all gone. They would not recognise him. They would all be dead. When it came to it, his nerve nearly failed and he would have got straight back onto the 'bus to Wroxham, except that it had already left. His feet took him home anyway. He peered over the gate at the side. There was washing in the yard. He remembered that tablecloth, that blouse of his mother's. The door was locked.
A neighbour peered out from the door of the next house, with a strange scarf-thing twisted around her hair. He had never seen her before.
"She's out. Gone along to the Doctor's house."
Mum was never ill. He felt sick.
The neighbour peered closer. "You're a relative then? You've the look, but I haven't seen you before."
He nodded. "Only just got back."
"You've not had much news of them for a while?"
"No."
The neighbour nodded. He was about to go when she put her hand out to stop him.
"Look – sorry if I'm speaking out of turn to tell you – but mebbe it's better me telling you than you asking and her having to tell you." The woman took a deep breath. It was plain she did not much relish the task.
"Their son died. They thought they'd lost him before, after Dunkirk, but then they had a letter saying he was a prisoner, months later. But last year they had another one, saying he'd died of illness. They're real kind - she was real good to me when my Mary was bad with the bronchitis and I thought we might lose her – but there – no-one ever gets over losing a child do they? And it don't make no difference if the child's grown or not."
"Thanks."
He sped up the road to the doctor's house. By the time he got there, he wondered if he was doing this right. If Mum was ill, would a shock, even a happy shock, be good for her? He could ask for Tom's mum and she could tell Mum.
He didn't recognise the girl scrubbing the black and white square tiles in the porch.
"D'you want the Doctor?"
"No – no call to disturb him. His son – or Mrs Dudgeon."
The girl dropped the brush back into the bucket with a plop and scurried off, motioning him to step over the wet area and stand on the inside mat.
"Here's Mrs Dudgeon" The girl said, as if proud of some feat of conjuring.
"Can I help you?" she was pretty, this brown haired, grey –eyed young woman who appeared in the hall. She even looked slightly familiar, but he didn't know her. The young man who came through from the back of house looked even more familiar, but looked at him with a polite lack of recognition. This was beginning to feel like one of those nightmares, only worse - not only had the people he knew failed to recognise him, but he couldn't recognise them. And surely Tom would seem older not younger?
They stare at each other. Only the woman had not lost her self-possession.
"I'm Tom Dudgeon's wife." she explained, "Can I help you?"
Suddenly the obvious truth dawned. "You're Tom's "our baby" he said to the young man, "all grown up. I'd not have recognised you –'cept that you look like Tom."
The door of the consulting room flew open.
"You know that sounds exactly like – Pete!" and there was Tom, and he was indeed older and was as pleased to see Pete as Pete was to see him. And between the hand shaking and shoulder thumping , Tom, who always had been sensible, said to his brother "Don't just stand there, idiot, go and get his mother!" But it seemed Tom's wife had thought of that first, because he could hear an exclamation in the short passageway from the kitchen and there was Mum.
"Hello, Mum. I escaped."
It was a while before he was sitting on the Dudgeon's sofa next to his Mum, with a cup of tea in his hands. (Tom's wife made a very good cup of tea.) "Our baby", who had wisely decided that now was not the best time to point out that he had a name, had been sent running off to fetch Pete's Dad from Jonnatt's.
"Was I imagining it, or was Dot here?" Pete asked after the first rush of explanations was over.
"Yes, I don't know where she went, though." said Susan.
"Gone to tell Mrs Barrable?" Mrs Dudgeon suggested.
"Gone to tell Joe, more like." said Tom.
"Bill too?" Pete asked hopefully.
They shook their heads.
"Normandy." Tom said by way of explanation, and then realised it might mean nothing to Pete. "Just over a year ago."
"Since he's come back, Joe's been fishing a lot. Jonnatt's say they'll give him his job back, but not just yet. He brings me perch, mostly, once or twice a week." Mum said.
"Bill's mum too, I bet." said Pete. "But Port and Starboard – they're alright?"
This time they all, except Susan, looked at each other before shaking their heads.
"Starboard's alive," said Tom. "but I wouldn't say she was OK. They ... executed Port. In Paris. She was working with..she was in the resistance."
And then Dot came in with Joe, and Dad arrived, breathing as if he'd been running, which he probably had, and Mrs Barrable arrived, saying that someone called Duke had come to speak to Dot and "our baby" came back in with more cups of tea and Mrs McGinty came in from next door and Mum started asking him again what had happened and how he had escaped and Dad reached over her to put a warning hand on her shoulder as he had sometimes when Pete was little only Pete was taller now, tall as his Dad and the arm rested heavily on his shoulders and across the back of his neck, heavy like the arm of a corpse and suddenly all the wordswere justsoundwithnomeaningandhesawhis cup fall and smash against the wood block floor.
When he dared to look up, the room was empty again. Nearly empty. His parents sat on either side of him. The brown-haired girl,(What was her name? Did it matter?) sat in one of the chairs opposite, waiting quietly, as if she could wait a week or a month if she had to.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be." She smiled at him gently, as if it was all quite normal, as something like this happened every day of her life.
The front door shut. The sitting room door opened cautiously. Tom exchanged glances with his wife, and then said to Pete and his parents.
"You might want to stay put for a bit. Avoid catching up with them going along the street. Mrs Barrable doesn't walk so fast anymore."
Tom had seen them to the front gate, Dorothea herding the others along gently, but firmly. Seeing Bill's mum coming along the road, Tom had hovered. Dorothea and Joe between them seemed to have judged the situation well and seeing them ushering Bill's mum in the general direction of the staithe, Tom had left them to it.
"Pete?"
Pete looked up
"Do you want to come along tomorrow and let me give you a check-up? That's if you trust the young doctor that is. You can see Dad, if you'd rather not see me. There's plenty that would rather wait for Dad."
Pete smiled, though it felt a little strange and weak. "Bet that old Mrs Tedder do."
"She does." Tom said.
