‘Soppy thing!’ she laughed, admiring him. He looked very brown and very dashing, with his beret on sideways, his battledress unbuttoned, his tie all anyhow. He hasn’t changed a bit, she thought. All that nonsense about getting married was a joke. Thank God for that. ‘Put me down do you daft happorth!’
He lowered her to the ground, grinning at her. ‘When’s Dad home?’
‘Should be there now,’ she told him. ‘He’s on late turn.’
‘Perfect!’ he beamed. ‘See you teatime.’ And he kissed her again and was gone.
‘Always in a rush, these young things,’ one of the customers said. ‘Can’t wait fer anything.’
‘That’s the war,’ another chipped in. ‘I mean, what’s the point a’ waitin’ when there’s a war on? We might all be dead by termorrer, let’s face it. Live life while you can, that’s what I say.’
‘Gaw dearie me!’ the butcher said, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘You’re a cheerful lot this morning! Now then, Mrs Harris, what can I do you for?’
Fried onions, Heather thought, as she weighed out half a pound of scrag-end for Mrs Harris. And her mind leapt forward to the scene there would be round her table that evening, the three of them together again, just like old times, three plates, three bottles of beer. Oh it was good to have him home.
But when she got back to Childeric Road, he wasn’t there. Bob had put the potatoes on to boil and was sitting in his armchair in the corner reading the paper and looking a bit sheepish but there was no sign of Steve.
‘Did you see him?’ she asked.
Bob nodded. ‘Yep. Caught me on the ’op. I was still in my pyjamas.’
She took off her coat and put on her apron, tying the strings firmly round her waist. ‘I hope he’s not going to be late for supper,’ she said. ‘It’ll spoil if he is.’
Bob looked more sheepish than before. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘He should be back directly.’
‘I’ll get on with the onions then.’
But when the meal was cooked and ready to serve and her lovely Steve finally came bursting through the door, he hardly gave the onions a sniff.
‘It’s all fixed,’ he said. ‘13th a’ May, half past ten. I know it’s a bit early but it’s the only space they had. There’s a rush on. Anyway, I’ve booked the hall, an Charlie’s going to take photos, an’ I went round to Aunty Mabel and Uncle Sid. Didn’t see him but she was there an’ it’s all OK. She can stay there Friday night. They’re going to put their camp bed in with the girls. Bit of a squash but it’ll be all right for one night. The girls came in from school while I was there an’ they say they’ll see to the flowers. So it’s just the invites, that’s all. I got two sets a’ cards, with wedding bells on.’ And he took them out of his tunic pocket and laid them on the table beside his father’s plate. ‘I thought they’d do.’
‘May the 13th?’ Heather said weakly. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be true.
‘That’s the day,’ Steve said and gave her a smile of such rapturous happiness it made her heart contract to see it. How could she tell him off when he looked like that? But she had to say something.
‘And where’s it going to be?’
‘Here. In the Town Hall.’
She felt giddy. Why here? Weddings were supposed to be at the bride’s place. And why in such a rush? What was going on? She took a breath to steady herself and tried another tack. ‘Don’t we have to give consent?’
‘Yes,’ he said cheerfully scathing about it, ‘if you ever heard anything so barmy. I’m old enough to die for King and Country apparently, but not old enough to get married unless my daddy says so. Don’t worry. Dad’s seen to it.’
So that’s why he was looking sheepish, Heather thought, and turned towards him, her face stern with rebuke. But he was wearing his warning expression.
‘Her name’s Barbara,’ he said quickly, ‘an’ before you ask, he hasn’t brought us a snap or anything but she’s gorgeous.’
‘She would be,’ Heather said.
Her sarcasm was lost on Steve. ‘There wasn’t time for snaps,’ he explained, all smiles. ‘It’s all been a bit of a rush. We haven’t got much longer, you see Mum. It could be any day now. I was surprised I got leave, to tell you the truth.’
I can’t deny him, Heather thought. Not when he says things like that. He’s making a terrible mistake and he’ll live to regret it but we’ll have to let it happen. ‘Tell us while we’re eating supper,’ she said, suggesting him to the table. ‘I got liver an’ bacon.’
‘You’re the best mum in the world,’ he said.
So he went back to King’s Lynn with everything arranged to his happy satisfaction and that Friday evening Barbara handed in her notice. A fortnight later, with all her worldly goods packed in Becky’s battered suitcase, and all his army kit packed in a standard army kitbag, they were on their way to London and their new life.
Chapter Six
The next fifteen hours passed in a blur. The train to London was crowded with servicemen, every seat taken, string racks crammed to the ceiling and with so many kitbags and cases piled on the floor and so many people squashed together in the corridor that Steve could barely find a space for them both to stand in. Not that they cared. Travelling was always uncomfortable in wartime. You had to expect it. They were together and that was all that really mattered. When the train swayed over the points, he could put an arm round her waist to hold her steady, when a sudden jolt threw her against his chest, she could stay where she was until the roll of the rails pulled them apart again. Desire carried them sensuously from moment to moment.
‘By this time tomorrow,’ he said, brown eyes lustrous, ‘we shall be married.’
Fields of green corn and sugar beet spread like a dappled sea beyond their criss-crossed window, clumps of trees whooshed by, the wheels beat their familiar rhythm over the rails, fiddledy-dee fiddledy-dum. By this time tomorrow we shall be married. They stopped at Cambridge and more passengers squeezed into the throng so that they were pushed even closer together. The air was blue with cigarette smoke. By this time tomorrow we shall be married.
Then they were racketing through London, past rows of dishevelled back gardens and terraces of soot-stained houses, stolid under slate roofs the colour of battleships. It wasn’t long before Barbara noticed the gaps and the piles of rubble.
‘Is that the bombs?’ she asked, awed by how many there’d been.
‘That’s the bombs,’ he told her grimly. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll pay for it.’
‘Too right,’ an Australian soldier agreed. ‘You’re with the Desert Rats, ain’tcher mate?’
Steve agreed that he was, proudly, and was soon deep in a conversation that rapidly involved all the soldiers and airmen around them.
Barbara didn’t understand what they were saying but she felt honoured to be in their company. Fighting men, she thought, the ones who are going to win this war. And she felt such pride and terror at what that implied that it made her chest ache. She was quite relieved when they pulled into Liverpool Street station and the talk had to stop.
They struggled onto a wide platform, joined the great crowd of blue and khaki figures all moving in the same direction, emerged into a street so huge and dusty and full of people that for once in her life she was glad to have an arm to cling to.
A bus took them through the City – such buildings! – and over London Bridge – imagine! – to a place where trams clanged along the middle of the road one after the other in a long wine-red convoy and there were cars and lorries everywhere and people were talking in quick rough voices in an unfamiliar English and all sorts of other languages she couldn’t understand. A tram buzzed them through endless streets to New Cross, which looked exactly like all the other places they’d driven through, with shops along both sides of a wide main road, crowds thronging the pavements and streets and streets full of houses.
‘It’s so big,’ she said, as they set off down one of the side turnings. The size and assura
nce of it were making her feel like a country bumpkin.
He was so happy to be home that he didn’t notice how discomfited she was. ‘Isn’t it,’ he said happily. ‘Here we are.’
They’d reached a long terrace of Victorian houses with bay windows hung with net curtains and posh front doors shaded by porches and little front gardens edged by privet hedges and little brick walls.
She was stunned by such affluence. ‘Do you live here?’
‘No,’ he said, knocking at one of the doors. ‘This is where my Aunty Mabel lives, where you’re going to stay the night.’ And before he could tell her anything else, the door was opened by two skinny girls who fell upon him and pulled him into the house, both talking at once and leaving Barbara to follow them.
Steve introduced them, ‘My cousins. This is Joyce.’ Waving at the older one. ‘She’s a Tartar. You’ll have to watch out for her. And this is Hazel. This is Barbara, girls.’
‘We know!’ they chorused, staring at her.
‘You coming in?’ a woman’s voice called. ‘I expect you’d like a cup a’ tea, wouldn’t you.’ Plump, smiling, with Steve’s brown eyes. ‘I’m Steve’s Aunty Mabel.’
So they had tea and a meal in her warm kitchen, and Barbara sat facing a dresser full of plates and cups patterned green and orange, and listened as they swapped family gossip that she couldn’t understand, and felt out of place and uncomfortable with four pairs of identical brown eyes watching her every movement. Then, to her alarm, Steve said he’d better be off.
She couldn’t believe her ears. Surely he wasn’t going to leave her? ‘Now? I mean, straight away?’
He smiled at her. ‘’Course. It’s tradition. Bride and groom have to be kept apart on the wedding eve otherwise it’s bad luck. Come and see me out. Bye Aunt Mabel. Bye girls. Thanks for supper.’
The entire family followed him to the front door, his aunt and cousins happily, Barbara with growing anxiety. ‘Hain’t I gonna meet your mum an’ dad?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said and kissed her goodbye, a very proper kiss with all those eyes looking on. ‘Must go. My mates are waiting for me.’
She wanted to keep him there a bit longer, to argue that she really ought to meet his parents before the wedding, to beg him not to leave her alone, but he’d opened the door to the darkness outside and was already striding down the little path and hurdling over the gate. ‘The girls’ll look after you, won’t you girls,’ he called. ‘See you tomorrow.’
She didn’t want the girls to look after her. She wanted to be with him, not on her own in a strange house with strange people. How can he do this to me? she thought, staring into the darkness. Don’t he realise how I feel? But apparently not, because he didn’t even look back.
‘He’s off drinking with his mates,’ the big one explained, and she shut the door and adjusted the blackout curtain. ‘He always does that when he’s home on leave. Come on. We got to show you round.’
The tone upset her. ‘You don’ have to,’ she said. ‘I aspect I can find my own way.’.
‘You want to know where you’re going to sleep don’t you?’ the big girl asked, her glasses glinting in the half-light in the hall. She was nearly as tall as Barbara, and with that tightly permed hair and those round specs she looked and felt like an opponent.
‘Show her the bathroom first, our Joyce,’ the smaller one said. ‘She might want to spend a penny.’
So she had to follow them and be shown. First they took her back to the kitchen, where their mother was clearing the table, and from there to the bathroom, which was a narrow room leading out of a scullery at the back of the house. She was impressed by it despite herself. Imagine having a lavvy inside the house! And a bath with a geyser for hot water. What luxury! They must be rich. But she didn’t use the toilet, even though she wanted to. That would have been too embarrassing with them waiting outside. So they led her upstairs to the front bedroom, which overlooked the street and was full of beds, a high double, a lower single, a camp bed virtually on the floor.
‘That’s yours,’ the little girl said. How pert she was with her short bob and that straight thick fringe. ‘That’ll do, won’t it.’
Be all the same if it wouldn’t, Barbara thought as she nodded. But it was only for a night. Just one night. That was all.
‘You can put your things in here,’ Joyce said, opening a drawer. ‘We cleared it out for you.’ And she looked at the battered case that her guest had carried upstairs. ‘You won’t need more room than that, will you?’
Barbara unpacked, as that seemed to be expected and the two girls sat on the double bed and quizzed her.
‘How long you been going out with our Steve?’ Joyce began.
‘Ages,’ Barbara told her, trying to slide her cheap underwear into the drawer before they could get a look at it.
It was a wasted effort. She’d never known two girls with such sharp eyes. ‘You should’ve got yourself some parachute silk,’ the little one remarked. ‘You only need a panel and you can make all sorts a’ things. Molly up the Co-op had petticoats and french knickers an’ all sorts. You should’ve seen ’em.’
The bombardment went on. Was her hair natural or did she have it permed? Did she have any brothers or sisters? Were they coming to the wedding? Was that clogs she was wearing? ‘Look at that Hazel. All made a’ wood. They must be ever so heavy. Are they heavy?’
‘Not parti’cly,’ she said, daring them to disagree with her, and she folded her new blouse into the drawer and closed it quickly before they could make some disparaging remark about that too. ‘We going down now?’
‘Not yet,’ Joyce said. ‘We got you a wedding dress.’
‘What?’
‘It’s second-hand but it’s only been worn the once,’ Joyce said, pulling a large cardboard box from the top of the wardrobe. Then she giggled. ‘Well it would be, wouldn’t it? It was Molly’s up the Co-op. She says she was ever so happy when she wore it an’ she hopes you’ll be the same.’ She took off the lid and removed two layers of tissue paper. ‘There you are. What d’you think?’
It was an ivory-coloured dress, short and silky with a straight skirt and a bodice covered in lace, and Barbara could see at a glance that it wouldn’t fit her or suit her. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I don’t know whether …’
‘Try it on,’ they insisted, lifting it from the box. ‘See what it looks like. There’s a veil there an’ all. An’ a tirrarra. You’d never get a new one, would you? Think of all the coupons.’
So she tried it on, as there didn’t seem to be any way of refusing without being rude to them. And it didn’t fit. ‘Thass ever so kind of you,’ she said, relieved that she’d be able to escape from the awful thing so easily. ‘But thass too big. You can see can’t you.’ And she pinched the excess cloth in the bodice and held it away from her.
‘Oh we’ll soon have that fixed,’ Joyce said briskly. ‘Stand in front a’ the mirror an we’ll pin it to size. We can do what we like with it. She said.’
There was a pin cushion on the dressing table hedgehogged with pins. Within seconds she had half a dozen of them clenched between her lips and was busy at work nipping and tucking, while her sister hovered and gave advice. ‘Bit further over our Joyce … Little tuck under the bust … Not that much. You’re pullin’ the seam.’
‘There y’are,’ they chorused when they’d finished. ‘Put the veil on. Get the full effect. You look smashing. Like a film star.’
But when Barbara turned to the mirror to see what they’d done to her, she didn’t look smashing. She looked ridiculous. Stiff and awkward and unrecognisable. Like a badly-dressed doll with her bodice pulled over sideways and her hem uneven. I can’t wear this, she thought, staring at her reflection. I simply can’t.
‘Well ain’t that lovely!’ a voice said from the landing and there was Aunt Mabel, smiling approval. ‘Well done you two. It’s a transformation.’
But I don’t want to be transformed, Barbara thought. I want to be me.
‘That’s the borrowed bit taken care of,’ Hazel said, as she and Joyce pulled the dress over Barbara’s head. ‘An’ the old. That veil’s ever so old. And the ring’ll be new. Now we’ve just got to work on the blue. Bit a’ blue ribbon’ud do. We could make a garter or something or tie it round the flowers.’
‘What flowers?’ Barbara asked shaking her head free.
‘We’re gonna cut the lilac,’ Hazel told her. ‘It’s lovely this year. It’ll be a bit heavy but you won’t mind that, will you.’
‘Dad’ll find a bit a’ broom handle to hold it up,’ their mother said. ‘Right. That’s all settled then. We’ll hang that up in the wardrobe for now. It’s almost time for Bebe Daniels.’
‘Can’t miss that,’ Joyce agreed. ‘Then I’ll have to do my hair or I shall look a fright in the morning. What time’s our Betty coming home?’
So there’s another one of them. I thought two was bad enough.
‘Late,’ their mother said. ‘She won’t wake you. You can have another hour listening to the wireless and then you’d all better turn in. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.’
So they had another hour, which Barbara found difficult even with the wireless to keep them entertained. Then they went to bed.
The two girls bounced into their double bed and were asleep in minutes but Barbara couldn’t settle. The camp bed was as uncomfortable as it looked, the house was unfamiliar, and the dress loomed in the wardrobe like a threat. What have I let myself in for? she wondered as she tried to turn over without waking her new cousins. Do I want to belong to this family? To be here in this huge town, where I don’t fit, with all these people who give me funny looks an’ don’t like me? She wasn’t even sure she wanted to get married. Not now. And not here. Oh dear, she thought, what have I done?
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