With Audrey waiting patiently for her to speak, Betty drew a shuddering breath and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. She barely knew Audrey, but there was something about the woman that could cut through a person and directly reach their heart, like a hot knife through butter. There was no point trying to tell her any more tales; she would only dig herself a deeper hole to fall into and have to claw herself out of. Plucking at the grass beneath her feet and throwing it down again, she struggled to find the right words. Sitting on the clifftop like this, among the wild sea-pink flowers and the yellow gorse, with picture postcard views stretching across the bay to Old Harry Rocks and the Purbeck Hills, she felt completely disorientated.

‘I do believe that’s a peregrine falcon,’ said Audrey, pointing to the large bird of prey with a blue-grey back and a black head hovering in the sky. ‘You don’t see many these days. They used to be on the protected list, but they’ve been attacking pigeons carrying vital services messages, so the government have taken them off the list. They’re being shot now, and their eggs taken out of nests and destroyed. Another sacrifice of war.’

‘That’s sad,’ mumbled Betty. ‘I hadn’t thought that the war would affect birds too.’

Audrey nodded, and they sat together in silence for a few moments before she placed a hand on Betty’s arm and patted it, reassuringly.

‘Why don’t you begin with telling me where you’re really from, Betty?’ she said. ‘And, is Betty your real name?’

‘Yes,’ replied Betty with a sigh. ‘I’m from Bristol. I’ve never even been to Portsmouth.’

Thoughts of her childhood and family in Bristol assailed Betty’s mind. There was no denying that she’d had a rough start in life, raised in an orphanage after her mother died of consumption when she was three years old. The one and only memory she had of her mother was of bright patterned cloth, possibly a dress, or an eiderdown perhaps. Sometimes in her dreams she saw its joyful, vivid colours, and it was something to call her own, but how could she put all of that into words?

‘I was born in Bristol,’ was all she said. ‘I grew up in an orphanage.’

She remembered how surprised she’d been when nobody at the orphanage read her a bedtime story. The place taught her strict discipline and how to scrub floors until they shone – the hours spent working trained her well for life in the tobacco factory, where she worked from the age of fourteen. She had nothing when she met Robert, and when he proposed after they’d courted for a few months, she didn’t hesitate for a second. They’d moved in with his mother, into the house on Queen Street, and she finally had the family life she’d craved. She longed for kiddies to shower with love, to give them a better life than she herself had had so far, but what did she get instead? Robert’s double-crossing and his shameful lie.

‘So why did you say you were from Portsmouth?’ asked Audrey, frowning.

‘Because I’ve run away from Bristol,’ she said. ‘I’ve run away from my husband. His name’s Robert and he’s no good. He’s…he’s only gone and…’

Audrey put her arm round Betty’s shoulders and Betty had to use all of her might to hold in the floods of tears that were threatening to spill. A few leaked onto her cheeks regardless.

‘Oh Betty,’ said Audrey. ‘I’ve seen the way some husbands treat their wives, beating them black and blue. Cutting them off from their friends and family. I’ve had customers who have been married to rotten men and regretted their decision. Personally, I wouldn’t stand for it. I’d run away like you and find a way to escape the violence—’

‘It’s not that,’ interrupted Betty, suddenly feeling strangely protective of Robert again. ‘He’s never raised a finger to me. No, it’s, well, it’s… I must have been doing something very wrong, because he’s got another woman, hasn’t he? I say another woman but it’s not like he’s got a fancy woman, no, it’s worse, he’s, he’s… he’s got a wife and kids. He’s married to two women, would you believe? Ha! Two wives in the same city and all.’

‘Well I never,’ Audrey gasped. ‘What a swine! Not to mention criminal! He could go to prison for that. Bigamy, it’s called. I read about a local case in the paper. How long have you known that, you poor dear girl?’

‘A few weeks. I came here because I couldn’t stand it any longer,’ Betty said. ‘I’d rather have gone anywhere than stay there feeling angry and upset and ashamed. Sometimes, when he came home and sat down in front of the fire to listen to the wireless, he’d ask me to massage his shoulders because they were stiff from working at the dockyard, and do you know what, Mrs Barton?’

Audrey shook her head sadly while Betty blinked away her tears.

‘I did it!’ she said, thumping the ground with her hand. ‘I’d obediently rub his shoulders and watch him close his eyes in pleasure and all the time I didn’t say a word about what I knew! I’m a coward, that’s what I am. I should have hit him on the head with the fire poker!’

Chewing the inside of her cheek, she shook her head in anger at herself and batted away a fat bee that seemed determined to land on her dress.

‘No,’ said Audrey, sighing. ‘You’re not a coward. It’s sometimes impossible when you know what you’re about to say will blow your life apart – it’s easier just to carry on carrying on. We’ve all done it in some way or another, love. Oh Betty, my heart goes out to you. Is this what the problem was with Christine? Does she know Robert?’

‘Yes,’ Betty said. ‘Her husband is a friend of his. I thought about telling her the truth, then I worried that she’d tell everyone and Robert would go to jail. I hate him, but I don’t want to see him behind bars. Anyway, when I wouldn’t tell her the truth, she threatened to tell him where I am unless I paid her half my wage. I lost my temper.’ She stared away, at the ground.

‘I would have lost mine too,’ said Audrey. ‘How dare she try to blackmail you? I wouldn’t have believed she had it in her, until today. Surprising how folk can be, isn’t it? Ouch!’

Betty turned to look at Audrey, who was holding a hand against her bump and frowning, perhaps as if the baby had kicked her. She relaxed and smiled again. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Ignore me.’

‘If you want me to leave, I will,’ said Betty, thinking that even though Audrey had been sympathetic about her plight, she would probably now distrust her for lying, but Audrey shook her head.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I want you to get back to the shop and start working the rest of your shift,’ she said. ‘You’ve done enough running. Stay put in Bournemouth and we’ll work out what to do together. Sounds like you could do with a friend, Betty.’

It was the first time anyone had used the word ‘we’ or ‘together’ in relation to her for a long time. Overwhelmed with gratitude and with a feeling of warmth in her heart, she quickly stood up, brushed off her dress and offered a hand to Audrey, helping her to her feet.

‘Thank you,’ said Betty. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

---

Despite Audrey’s kindness, Betty still felt a sense of unease as, after helping Pat with the WVS book collection, she walked home alone. It had been a long day and now, because of the blackout, the journey back to her rented room in complete darkness felt intimidating. Holding her breath as she passed dark doorways and narrow alleyways, Betty almost jumped out of her skin when a black cat leapt off a garden wall into her path.

‘Silly moggy!’ she hissed at the cat, resting her hand on her heart, which was pounding in her chest. ‘Frightened me half to death.’

Telling herself to get a hold of her nerves, she focussed on how the air in Bournemouth seemed to always smell of fish and chips frying, and how tonight, it was pierced with the bright chorus of trumpets and trombones of ‘In The Mood’, a Glen Miller song. An echo of excited laughter, both male and female, erupted as the song finished and Betty half-smiled, imagining an energetic dance party somewhere in the town, keeping up morale and helping people forget the war for a few hours. Feeling slightly envious of the girls in their flowing dance frocks and heeled shoes, who could leave their troubles at the door of the dance hall, she battled with the unshakeable fear she felt about Christine, who would have been back in Bristol hours ago. Would she have gone to the docks to find Robert? Was she that spiteful? Or was she all talk? Betty shuddered, hoping that Christine would keep her nose out of it and her trap shut.

Approaching her digs – which in blackout would be impossible to see if it wasn’t for the stripe of white paint the owner had painted on the gate to help tenants find their way – she was suddenly startled by the outline of a man lurking in the doorway of the Hotel Metropole. Heart hammering and her teeth chattering with nerves, a horrible thought suddenly dawned on her…

‘What if it’s Robert?’ she whispered to herself. ‘Come to get his money back.’

Before she had time to turn on her heel and run away as fast as she could, the figure leapt out of the doorway into her path. Closing her eyes, she screamed, but stopped when the man rested a hand on her shoulder and spoke in a friendly Canadian accent.

‘Hey, hey, Betty, it’s Sam!’ he said, laughing gently. ‘I’m so sorry I scared you. I’ve been waiting for you for an hour. Are you okay?’

Hand on her chest, cheeks puffed out as she exhaled, she took a moment to recover before standing up straighter, glaring at Sam for frightening her.

‘What were you doing, hiding in the shadows like that?’ she cried. ‘You terrified me! Thought it was someone out to get me, didn’t I?’

Sam pulled a sad face and put his head on one side.

‘I’m sorry. I was just waiting for you, that’s all, because it’s my birthday,’ he said. ‘There’s a dance on and I wanted to ask if you’d come along. I’d love you to come with me.’

He gently grabbed her hand and tugged her a few steps along the pavement and for a split second she almost let herself go, before remembering.

‘I can’t,’ she snapped, shaking off his hand, pushing past him, throwing open the front door, which was always unlocked, and running up to her bedroom. Wrestling with the key in the lock, muttering under her breath, she finally let herself in and slammed the door behind her. The room was dank, dark and unwelcoming. Feeling torn apart with guilt, she saw Sam’s crushed expression in her mind’s eye. Why had she been so rude to him, on his birthday too?

With tears stinging her eyes, she quickly walked to the window and opened it slightly, peering outside. ‘Oh Sam,’ she whispered, hoping he’d still be out there so she could call out an apology, or at least offer him a small wave, but he was gone. The street was empty. Dejected, she moved away from the window and sat on the edge of the creaky bed, feeling like the loneliest person in the world. She imagined Sam joining the noise, laughter and music at the party, dancing with another girl who was light and quick on her feet, with a pretty dress and a beguiling smile – she knew it would only be a matter of time before he forgot that she even existed. She let out a deep sigh and closed her eyes. She was getting what she wanted after all: to be invisible.