Gertie Golden Girl

GERTIE, GOLDEN GIRL

Tony Spencer

PROLOGUE

I awake in the night, it must be night as it is still dark. And it is quiet, very quiet, but then my hearing comes and goes more and more lately. Old age is both a blessing and a curse, I feel. Anyway, I can hear a soft but incessant beeping coming through though. What is it? It seems a familiar sound but I can't quite place it.

I do feel a little bit hazy, like my head is fuzzy and full of cotton wool, yet I'm not completely out of it. I do need to concentrate by calming down the panic that I feel and act like the grown adult I know I am, and not act like a frightened child in the dark.

It was at times like this that Johnnie used to say to me whenever I was overawed by something that was part of his life and now becoming part of mine, in his clear, commanding, beautifully cultured voice, "Come on Gertie, old girl, snap out of it!"

Yes, in those early days, there was a lot of that.

And as for "Old girl", well indeed!

I can't help smiling at my memories of my dear, dear Johnnie. "Old thing", too I regard with affection, he called me that sometimes as well. It both annoyed and comforted me back then and very often at difficult times ever since then whenever my mind turns to Johnnie. Gosh, it must be over seventy years, but yes, hearing Johnnie inside my head has forever been a comfort all this long life that I have lived.

Well, not all of my life. Not nearly all and not really nearly enough.

He came into it to court me like a completely honourable gentleman when I was just 17 year old and, after only five wonderful, fully lived but far, far too short years, my dear, sweet Johnnie was gone. Gone from existence in this world, except forever in my head and heart. He is there still, he will be for eternity.

So, I knew Johnnie, my first and best husband of the three men I married, all too briefly, for those five short years that simply flew giddily by, from my being 17 to 22, while Johnnie was twelve years older than me and far more experienced in life, but still he always affectionately called me "Old Girl" whenever I had to face something I had never done before or just whenever he wanted to engage with me.

And, during our brief time together, of course, everything we did was new and some things were were more than a little daunting that first time, like meeting the King or even worse than that, the very thought of the ordeal of meeting Johnnie's mother for the first time. I remember which one was more nerve-racking in the anticipation of, but "once you've seen one palace you've seen them all, old girl," I remember Johnnie saying.

Yes, his quiet, "Old Girl" and gentle, supporting, loving smile just made me think to myself, "Yes, Gertie, you can do this," and realising soon after that I found, yes I really could do whatever it was.

And even though he has been gone now, oh, for nearly 70 years, he is still my prop. He has always been near, ever-present in my heart, a force that sits within me, supporting me, even though I married twice more after he was gone, and even though I've been without either husband or lover for more than 40 years, I have always felt the strength of Johnnie's love within me. And I feel it even closer now while my own health is failing and perhaps feeling some relief that Heaven and Johnnie are drawing near.

Mmm, I can still hear that infernal beeping. Perhaps that is what woke me? It doesn't sound much like Heaven ... and it's chilly, which is a relief, in hope that Heaven is not as hot as the "other place".

My left ear has inexplicably been filling with wax for the last couple of years and Chloe, the nurse down at the glorified dispensing chemists near my London flat, sorts that out for me with some horrid, infernal suction machine, after loosening the wax with hot pumped water or oil. My right ear gave up the ghost long ago and I do have a discrete hearing aid for it, which works well but it's damned uncomfortable, so I only wear it when going out somewhere special, like my 90th birthday a couple of years or so ago. Only that happened in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and we couldn't go anywhere to celebrate, not until my 91st, when my favourite people in the world, dear grandson Jake and Gill his lady, took me to a delightful riverside pub in Henley for lunch. I insisted that my great granddaughters, April and May, accompanied us. They were identical twins only two years old and adorable babies.

The "terrible twos" I remember telling Jake, is just a state of mind for the parents, "just remember that only in exceptional circumstances do the terrible twos continue to become the 'terrifying teens', embrace and enjoy every moment of your babies and smile through it all, because however long it lasts it's not forever and long afterwards you will always feel that your time with them at any age was never quite long enough."

Of course I remember my own twins, a girl and a boy, Mary and Jonty. They were not identical, they were chalk and cheese and like their father they weren't around as long as I would've loved them to be.

Mary had the "terrible twos" all the way through to her terrifying teens and beyond but she was into everything and she had so much energy, determination and drive. I suppose that she took after me, so how in all conscience could I possibly stop her? And poor Jonty, he was the quiet one, never any trouble, never wanted attention, it was as if he missed his father even though he never knew him. Perhaps he sensed and felt my loss and took some of the pain upon himself to lessen my burden.

I remarried about twelve years years after Johnnie was killed in Korea while he was serving the King and then the Queen and his Country. I suppose I thought I was remarrying mostly for Jonty's benefit, I thought he needed a father figure as he was entering his teens, but I also remarried for myself. I wanted a life partner to share with and dilute the pain of my loss.

That second marriage didn't work out as well as I hoped, although I stuck it out until 'death doth us part'. My second husband lasted about twice as long as my first, it only seemed much more interminable at the time and I was glad when it was over, even though we mostly lived separate lives for most of the marriage.

It was a delightfully sunny day as I re-remember my 91st birthday in Henley and a gentle walk along the river bank would've been such a delight, but my old legs won't take me very ... of course I am rambling now, and I feel Johnnie about to call me "Old Girl" again. Now think, where am I? And why am I awake?

I often wake at night, nowadays. I tend to nap most of the time at home.

Now I am calm and pulling myself together, I realise that I am in hospital and, if I am in any hospital at all I must be in my hospital, or at least one of my wings.

Yes, that beeping is clearly a monitor, in ICU, it definitely sounds familiar because I visit the Lady Standhope Wing all the time. Usually, at least recently, I visit the new Lady Standhope Maternity Centre, because I do love the smell of new-born babies. They prefer to call it "Centre", apparently "Wing" is not much favoured nowadays, even if it is in the shape of a building's wing. I love visiting there, even though I don't visit the hospital as often I used to do when I was much more mobile. This Wing I appear to be in not so much but Sir Michael insists ... and he insisted I come to his hospital when I called him yesterday after admitting to feeling poorly for the last week or so.

I think it was yesterday. Anyway, I couldn't breathe, I could barely talk. And Sir Michael sent an ambulance to fetch me. Gill came with me, as Alfonsine took charge of looking after Gill's girls, so Gill came with me in the ambulance holding onto my hand, the sweet girl she is. She's not an "Old Girl", yet but she will be, to the family, and soon, when I'm gone.

Gill will be "The Old Girl" to the family when I'm no longer there, and I feel relaxed that I've left the family in very good hands. Seventy years of pulling family strings together is tiring but I can let go of those reins now. My grandson Jake chose his bride well, even if he did need a bit of a push to get started. Gill is like my Johnnie, sweet and kind when they can be, but sharp as a tack and decisive when push comes to shove. And, through Gill, Jake has somehow emerged from his chrysalis and he runs his bank Winstone's as well as only he can, while she still runs hers, Standhope Winter, although from a distance since the twins' appearance and their own demands. Both of those banks have been my family's lifeblood, it seems, forever.

And long may that continue long after I am gone.

Thinking of Gill, reminds me what awoke me. It was hearing Gill and Sir Michael talking. Talking about me. About my condition. I have caught that damned Covid-19 even after being so careful. It seems I caught some new-fangled variant that seems to arise every year and all the jabs I've had may not provide sufficient protection on top of my other tiny niggles brought on by old age. Sir Michael was saying that the chances are I wouldn't pull through, and Gill said that Jake was away in the Far East and might not be back in time to see me before I shuffled off.

"In time," they had said. That does have a ring of finality about it.

Well, this "old girl" does want him back in time.

Jake is the best of all of us, he has the best of me and Johnnie and Mary and Colin too inside him. That must be why my life is flashing before me, only it is flashing by far too quickly, a little too disorganised and again, far too quick.

"Slow down, Gertie, old girl, my Golden Girl," I can hear Johnnie say, his soft voice and sweet loving, encouraging smile that plays in my head all the time like a cherished 78, "enjoy replaying your life slowly and carefully, old girl, I want to see it along with you and enjoy it all again, too. I've waited patiently for 70 years and Young Jacob will get here as soon as he can, so relax, old girl, and start replaying your life for me from the beginning."

Old girl, indeed! I suppose the beginning really begins with Johnnie, my life didn't really begin at all until then, and I was just 17.

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Chapter 1 HAT CHECK GIRL

Gertrude Elizabeth Thornton was born 5 June 1929 in Edmonton North London but she moved to Limehouse in Tower Hamlets when she was about four years old. For the first seventeen years of her life she lived with her parents Daniel and Dorothy Thornton. Dan was a boiler maker in the railway industry by trade and housewife Dotty worked part-time cooking lunches from Tuesday to Saturday at the local secondary school and during the holidays in a fish and chip shop, once Gertie started school at four years and three months old, one of the youngest of the new intake.

Gertie had two older brothers, Dan Junior, often called Danny, and Eric, who were eight and six years older than Gertie. They both remained in London with their parents in 1939 when the younger children were evacuated until they were called up by the War Office, to join the Royal Navy and British Army respectively.

When she was 10, in September 1939, Gertie was evacuated to Guildford in Surrey, an old market town that was all hills, due to the expected bombing of London after the declaration of war with Germany and her allies. She stayed in the Vicarage with a rather dour Scottish minister and his wife and, being a bright and lively girl, was required to sit and be seen and not heard. She was unhappy living there and was delighted when, during the Phoney War period shortly after the war began, her parents came and brought her back home to Limehouse again.

When the bombing started in earnest in late 1940, Gertie was evacuated once again, this time to a farm, really no more than a smallholding, in the western county of Devon, near the coast, to live with a young but childless couple, Nathaniel and Betty Twist. She had a wonderful time for four years there and she made life-long friends with the loving couple.

Gertie returned home to Limehouse in the late summer of 1944 as a fifteen year old. She worked in a factory stitching silk parachutes for a short while but, when the theatres opened up after the war, one of her school friends Agnes Holbrough, who already worked in a theatre bar, recommended her to her employers and Gertie started working in a theatre as a cloakroom hat-check girl. Her bright and outgoing personality, her quick mind and calm, efficient attention to detail, she made herself indispensable in her minor role and made many friends high and low in the theatre in just a few short months.

Of course, she won admirers among the theatre customers and was constantly being hit on, mostly by older men, at the theatre, but she was consistently polite in insistently fending off their unwanted advances.

Of all the customers who handed over their coats and hats to her charge and collected them after the show, she did feel an attraction to a tall slim young man, though clearly much older than her. He held himself erect in his bearing, his face was open and honest, with a clean shaven chin and thin pencil moustache, Gertie thought he looked handsome, and welcomed his gentle and courteous manners. He was a keen theatre goer, she noticed and, although he often wore an Army Captain's uniform, of late he more usually wore evening dress at the theatre. Whatever he was wearing, he always looked smart and rather dashing, she thought.

One cold, wet night, when the theatre was full to capacity as usual, and her coat racks were overflowing with raincoats and damp overcoats, she had a spot of bother with a customer who was a little the worse for wear after overstaying his welcome at the interval bar, having found the theatre doors already securely closed to the third act.

He came to collect his overcoat and homburg but he couldn't find his numbered ticket in his pockets. Gertie turned her back to look through the most likely place for his coat as she often stacked groups of people's coats together and lone theatregoers separately to one side, when the customer suddenly opened the counter flap and came up behind her.

He grabbed a strong hold on her, covered her mouth with one of his hands and tried to grope her small breasts with the other. She managed to run the sharp back of her broad heel down his shin and stamp on his toes, and then she screamed the moment the assailant's hand uncovered her mouth. She turned and slapped the scoundrel. Before she could run away though, the man slapped her hard on the left cheek with a blow from his right hand and the slightly-built girl went flying, hit a pile of coats hanging on a rack and landed on the floor in a daze, half covered with dislodged coats.

The next moment, a couple of theatre staff members, the barman Dick and doorman Bert, ran up and they roughly bundled the drunk out of the cloakroom and away down the corridor, no doubt to eject him minus his coat and hat into the wet weather outside.

"Are you all right, Miss?" Gertie heard herself being addressed and looked up in both shock and embarrassment at the predicament she had found herself in. To add to her pain, it was the very ex-Captain, who she had admitted to herself that she admired, looking down at her sitting on the floor, and he was holding out a hand to her help her rise.

Instinctively, she grabbed his hand and allowed him to pull her up and she tried to brush whatever imagined dust was on her smart blue theatre uniform with lemon yellow piping around the edges.

"Er, yes, sir, thank you sir," Gertie replied, looking embarrassed to find herself in this position. "It was just a slap, sir, but it came out of the blue and I wasn't expecting it, sir. Just give me a moment, sir and I will fetch your coat and--"

"Come on, Miss, don't worry about hats and coats. Let's get you down to Mr Whittaker's office so you can sit down and get back your equilibrium."

Mr Whittaker was the theatre manager. She had never been to his office before and Gertie was worried that she might be blamed and sacked for the incident as she was sure that the customer was rarely regarded as being in the wrong.

"I er, can't go with you sir, I have my work to do in a few minutes when the act ends ... and ... and well, I don't really know you, sir."

"I'm Johnnie," he said, with a disarming smile, "and your nameplate says you're Gertrude, so now we know each other's names, so we sort of know each other. I can hear Whittaker coming now. He has already been made aware of what's happened and he's probably called the Police."

'Oh, no,' groaned Gertie to herself, 'now I'm for it, I'm bound to be sacked for sure and I've really enjoyed this job, dressed in my little uniform, it was ever so much nicer than working in the garment factory.'

Johnnie continued to hold her hand in his.

"Gertie," she said, returning his smile, as he gently took her arm and led her towards the manager's office, "they had the badge made up from me application form before I was able to tell anyone that no-one ever uses me full name."

Just then, the Manager Mr Whittaker turned up with Bert the doorman, after just finishing hearing the doorman's explanation of what happened.

"Aree you all right?" Mr Whittaker asked.

"She was struck in the face by the blunder," Johnnie said curtly, "I was taking her to your office to recover."

"But the hats and coats, sir," Gertie almost wailed, "the audience'll be out in a few minutes and when I fell, I think I pulled some of the coats to the floor, they may be soiled or damaged, oh dear, I'm so sorry, sir."

"Don't worry about the coats, Miss Gertie," Johnnie soothed, 'I'm sure Mr Whittaker can smooth over any ruffled feathers, right Mr Whittaker?"

"Yes, of course, sir," Mr Whittaker said, "Come along to my office Miss Thornton, Bert's gone to order you a nice cup of tea from the kitchen, in fact he's fetching a pot so we can all enjoy a cup while you recover from your ordeal. And Dick's now off fetching Marjorie from the Stalls, she looked after the cloakroom for a couple of years before you, so I am sure she can pick up from where you've left off. I'll wait here until she arrives and we'll check the coats out for you."

"Thank you, Mr Whittaker, I do appreciate your kindness," Gertie said quietly, thinking the worst.

"Nonsense, my girl, you get off and sit in the quiet in my office, I'll be along shortly once I've got Marjorie settled."

Johnny helped her to the manager's office and sat her in a chair, held her hand and comforted her while an ice pack was summoned from the kitchen through the girl who brought the tea things on a tray.

"Shall I be mother?" grinned the handsome Johnnie when he stirred the tea and replaced the pot lid and before handing the ice pack to Gertie which had just arrived.

"I really should do that," Gertie said, weakly attempting to rise, but her wobbly legs didn't seem to work properly.

"No, you won't," he insisted, "I've got this and you've had an awful shock from a beastly attack by that frightful man."

She lifted the hand that Johnnie wasn't still holding to her burning cheek and touched it gingerly.

Johnnie released her right hand and stood as he attended to the tea.

"Your cheek may be a little sore for a day or two," he remarked, "but he doesn't seem to have cut the skin, so the discolouration should fade fairly soon. Keep the ice on it, it will help to reduce the swelling."

He lifted the pot lid and stirred the tea one more time with a teaspoon and judged it brewed and ready. He turned two of the three cups over, that had lain upside down in their saucers, and lifted the milk jug. He turned to her and asked, "Do you take milk?"

"Please, yes, er, I like it quite milky," she quietly replied, chewing her lip.

Gertie was thinking to herself, wondering how she should behave. 'I'm always so careful to keep my place,' she said to herself, 'Here is a gentleman, clearly a gentleman, who is serving me with tea. I am the servant here, and I am supposed to be the one doing the serving. Yet he was so insistent and yet seems to know the gentlemanly bounds of behaviour. He has been kind and sympathetic and held my hand for comfort and carefully steered me using my arm. But here I am alone with a man in a closed office. I should be concerned and, I suppose in a way that I am, but only about his reputation, not mine. I matter very little, well, nothing at all in fact, but ... oh dear, what do I do here in this situation?'