Dr Wallace, the senior medical officer on the SS Kansas Star, was waiting by her front door in Still House Lane when she returned home after work that October evening. He didn’t need to tell her why he was there. It was etched on his face.
They sat in the kitchen, and the doctor told her he’d been responsible for the welfare of those sailors who’d been dragged from the ocean following the sinking of the Devonian. He assured her that he’d done everything in his power to save Harry’s life, but unhappily he’d never regained consciousness. In fact, of the nine sailors he tended to that night, only one had survived, a Tom Bradshaw, the Devonian’s third officer, who was evidently a friend of Harry’s. Bradshaw had written a letter of condolence which Dr Wallace had promised to deliver to Mrs Clifton as soon as the Kansas Star returned to Bristol. He had kept his word. Maisie felt guilty the moment the doctor had left to return to his ship. She hadn’t even offered him a cup of tea.
She placed Tom Bradshaw’s letter on the mantelpiece next to her favourite photograph of Harry singing in the school choir.
When she returned to work the following day, her colleagues at the hotel were kind and solicitous, and Mr Hurst, the hotel manager, suggested she took a few days off. She told him that was the last thing she needed. Instead she took on as much overtime as she could handle, in the hope that it might dull the pain.
It didn’t.
Many of the young men who worked at the hotel were leaving to join the armed forces, and their places were being taken by women. It was no longer considered a stigma for a young lady to work, and Maisie found herself taking on more and more responsibility as the number of male staff dwindled.
The restaurant manager was due to retire on his sixtieth birthday, but Maisie assumed that Mr Hurst would ask him to stay on until the end of the war. It came as a shock when he called her into his office and offered her the job.
‘You’ve earned it, Maisie,’ he said, ‘and head office agrees with me.’
‘I’d like a couple of days to think about it,’ she replied before leaving the office.
Mr Hurst didn’t raise the subject for another week, and when he did, Maisie suggested that perhaps she should be put on a month’s trial. He laughed.
‘It’s usual,’ he reminded her, ‘for the employer, not the employee, to insist on a month’s trial.’
Within a week, they’d both forgotten about the trial period, because although the hours were long and her new responsibilities were onerous, Maisie had never felt more fulfilled. She knew that when the war was over and the lads returned from the front, she’d go back to being a waitress. She’d have gone back to being a prostitute, if it had meant Harry would be among those who came home.
Maisie didn’t need to be able to read a newspaper to know that the Japanese air force had destroyed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, and the citizens of the United States had risen as one against a common enemy and joined the Allies, because for days it was the only subject on everyone’s lips.
It wasn’t long before Maisie met her first American.
Thousands of Yanks found their way to the West Country over the next couple of years, and many of them were billeted in an army camp on the outskirts of Bristol. Some of the officers began to dine in the hotel restaurant, but no sooner had they become regulars than they would disappear, never to be seen again. Maisie was continually, painfully, reminded that some of them were no older than Harry.
But that changed when one of them did return. Maisie didn’t immediately recognize him when he wheeled himself into the restaurant and asked for his usual table. She had always thought she was good at remembering names, and even better when it came to faces – you have to be when you can’t really read and write. But the moment she heard that Southern drawl, the penny dropped. ‘It’s Lieutenant Mulholland, isn’t it?’
‘No, Mrs Clifton. It’s Major Mulholland now. I’ve been sent back here to recuperate before they pack me off home to North Carolina.’
She smiled and showed him to his usual table, although he wouldn’t allow her to assist him with his wheelchair. Mike, as he insisted Maisie call him, did become a regular, turning up twice, even three times a week.
Maisie laughed when Mr Hurst whispered, ‘You know he’s sweet on you.’
‘I think you’ll find my courting days are over,’ she replied.
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ he countered. ‘You’re in your prime, Maisie. I can tell you, Major Mulholland’s not the first man who’s asked me if you’re walking out with anyone.’
‘Try not to forget, Mr Hurst, that I’m a grandmother.’
‘I wouldn’t tell him that if I was you,’ said the manager.