‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded, the second Danny put his foot through the door.
‘I er . . . Well, the thing is, Soho Gus wanted to show me the caves down on the beach an’ we just sort o’ lost track o’ time,’ Danny admitted sheepishly.
Eric lifted a plate out of the oven and slammed it down onto the table. Danny eyed it with distaste. Whatever it was, it was all shrivelled up and looked very unappetising.
‘I’m just about sick of you two clearing off willy-nilly. Wouldn’t it have been courteous to come and tell me you were planning to go out first?’ Not waiting for an answer, Eric went on, ‘There’s your dinner, young man. Or at least what’s left of it. Don’t blame me if it’s inedible.’
Obviously deeply annoyed, he snatched up his coat and slammed out of the house without so much as another word.
Shame-faced, Danny eyed the ruined dinner. He supposed now that he had been rather thoughtless. Eric had obviously been very worried when he didn’t arrive home on time. A smile spread across his face at the thought. If Eric was worried then it must mean that he cared for him . . . at least a little bit?
Lifting a piece of the now unidentifiable meat from his plate, he offered it to Samson who, after giving it a sniff, pushed his nose in the air in disgust and walked away to collapse in front of the fire. Hemily did the same when Danny offered her some so he scraped the meal into the bin and put his plate in the sink before crossing to stand at the kitchen window. The lights of the outhouse were shining into the darkness outside, which meant that Eric must be in there painting.
Crossing to his own small easel, Danny pulled it into the light, and while the memory was fresh in his mind, he began to try and capture the picture of the windswept beach on canvas.
Down in the village, Lizzie was cowering at the side of the fire as she listened to Mr and Mrs Evans having a blazing row. They were upstairs in their bedroom, but even so, Lizzie could hear every single word they said.
‘Mother, you have to give the child some freedom,’ she heard Mr Evans say. His voice was wheezy and weak, but nonetheless it carried down the stairs.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ his wife retaliated. ‘Now come along and drink this soup whilst it’s hot. You know what the doctor said. You have to keep your strength up.’
The sound of a spoon clattering onto the bare wooden floorboards above told Lizzie that Mr Evans was not prepared to do as he was told, even if he was poorly.
‘Daffyd, shame on you, after I’ve gone to all the trouble of making it for you too!’
‘Bugger the soup and listen to me, will you, woman?’
There was an outraged cry from Mrs Evans and then a softening in his voice as her husband addressed her again. ‘This obsession with the little one is unhealthy, Blodwyn. Surely you can see it? She’s a grand little girl, there’s no denying it, but she’s not yours! Stop and think what you’re doing, love; you drove our boys away with your obsession.’
‘And do you really think I don’t know that, Father?’ The woman’s voice was full of sorrow.
‘Then why are you dressing her in Megan’s clothes? And why did you get all of our daughter’s dollies down out of the loft for her?’
‘Because they were lying up there doing nothing. It was her birthday and her mother didn’t send her anything, did she? So how could I see the child with nothing? You’re letting your imagination run away with you, so you are.’
A coughing fit stopped Mr Evans from arguing further and Lizzie listened with dread as she heard Blodwyn’s footsteps on the stairs. When the woman appeared in the doorway balancing a tray, she nodded at Lizzie affectionately.
‘Now then, bach. I’ll just set these dishes in the sink and then we’ll do your homework, shall we?’
Lizzie sighed resignedly, longing for the time when she could escape to her room, and wishing with all her heart that she was back at home in Coventry, with her mother.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Heaving herself up from her knees in the outside privy, Jo swiped her hand across the back of her mouth. For the last week she seemed to have done nothing but vomit and she felt like death on legs. Up until now she had managed to be on time for her job every single day, but she wondered how much longer she could manage it. Apart from herself, Maggie and Ellen, no one else knew of her condition as yet, but in a few weeks’ time she would no longer be able to conceal the fact, and then there’d be hell to pay. Especially when that nasty little man, Fred Massey, got to hear of it. It was a day she dreaded, for ever since recognition had dawned in his eyes, the man had regarded her with contempt as if she were something that the cat had brought in. Luckily she was still as thin as a matchstick and, apart from the tenderness in her breasts and a tiny swelling in her stomach, as yet there was no sign of the pregnancy.
Sighing, she pushed the door open and, pulling her cardigan more tightly about her, she hurried through the bitterly cold air to the back door. Maggie was in the kitchen singing to Lucy as she tried to tempt her to eat some breakfast. The little girl had come down with a heavy cold and was far from well, which was giving Maggie cause for grave concern. Never the most robust of children, Lucy seemed to fall prey to every cough and cold that was going around, and at this time of year there were plenty of them.
‘How is she this morning?’ Jo asked as she shut the back door behind her.
‘Not too bad. But how are you feelin’?’ Maggie glanced across her shoulder at Jo’s peaky face. ‘You look absolutely ghastly.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ Jo chuckled as she wound a scarf around her neck and picked up her coat. ‘You certainly know how to make a girl feel good.’
‘Well, I’m only speaking the truth,’ Maggie told her. ‘But if it’s any consolation, I know exactly how you’re feeling. I was as sick as a dog every single morning, all the way through when I was carrying the twins. Why don’t you have a day off an’ put yer feet up by the fire?’
‘Huh! I’ll be havin’ enough o’ them soon enough. No, I’m all right really - and I’d sooner work while I can. I just wish the sickness was only in the mornin’s. As it is I seem to be runnin’ to the lav every half-hour. Miss Hutchinson commented on it the other day an’ I had to tell her it was how the cold weather affected me. I don’t know how long she’ll swallow that excuse for, though.’
‘Try not to worry about it,’ Maggie replied kindly. ‘We’ll cross each bridge as we come to it, eh?’
As Jo looked across at her, the girl wondered how she would have coped without Maggie over the last few months. She had never had a true friend before, and to her Maggie was worth her weight in gold.
‘Right, I’d better get off, else I’ll be out of a job sooner than I thought,’ she said briskly. ‘Is there anything you’d like me to do before I go?’
‘No, but there is something you could help me with tonight. I have to get this wedding dress and veil over to Godiva Lane and I wondered if you’d come with me, to help me with the box. It’s not going to be that heavy, just awkward really. I thought perhaps me mam could pop over an’ have Lucy fer an hour while we delivered it. That is, if you don’t mind?’
‘Course I don’t mind,’ Jo assured her. She looked at the dress on the tailor’s dummy that Maggie had picked up for a snip from a rummage sale.
‘I just hope they’re happy with it,’ Maggie said worriedly. ‘She gets married this Saturday and I stayed up until two o’clock this morning getting it finished.’
‘Happy with it? Why, I should think she’ll be bloody ecstatic!’ Jo declared. ‘You’ve really excelled yerself this time. Royalty could walk down the aisle in that. No one would ever believe that it were made o’ parachute silk. Anyway, I’m off. See yer later.’
With a last cheeky grin she disappeared out of the door as Maggie gazed at the wedding dress. It was one of the most complicated patterns she had ever undertaken, but she had to admit to being quietly pleased with it. She’d spent numerous hours sitting covering with silk the
row of tiny buttons that ran from the long train at the back to the neckline, not to mention the hours and hours she had spent hand-stitching the lace onto the sweetheart neckline and the sleeves. She had two reasons for wishing to deliver it that night. One was obviously to make sure that the fit was just right. But secondly, she was hoping that she would be paid, for the coal was running dangerously low and she was trying to keep a constant temperature in the kitchen at least because of Lucy’s cold.
Her mother walked in just as Maggie was tying the ribbons on Lucy’s Liberty bodice. Ellen immediately spotted the beautiful dress in the corner of the room, and she exclaimed, ‘I have to say it, our Maggie, you’ve really excelled yerself this time! That dress is fit fer a princess!’
Her daughter grinned. ‘I’m glad you think so. Actually, I was hoping to deliver it tonight with Jo, and I was just saying to her that I wondered if you’d mind having Lucy for an hour while we did so?’
‘No problem at all,’ her mother assured her as she bent to place a kiss on her granddaughter’s head. ‘It ain’t as if I’ve got what you could call a hectic social calendar, is it?’
‘You could have, Mam,’ Maggie pointed out. ‘Why you choose to stay in, night after night, is beyond me. Mrs Massey is always askin’ you to go to Housey-Housey with her. You never even bother goin’ to the pictures any more.’
‘That’s because I have no wish to,’ her mother informed her shortly. ‘But anyway, let’s not start all that again. We’ve already been down that road. What did Danny have to say in the letter you got from him yesterday? Is he all right? An’ have you still not had one off Lizzie yet?’
‘No, I haven’t.’ Maggie’s voice was laced with concern. ‘Danny sounds all right, but says in his letter that Lizzie has never received any of mine, yet I always post them together. I can’t understand it. I think this time when I reply, I’m going to put Lizzie’s in with Danny’s. That way, he can pass it on to her, because he seems to be getting his all right.’
‘Sounds a bit fishy if yer were to ask me,’ Ellen commented. ‘It can’t be nothin’ to do wi’ the post not gettin’ through, otherwise Danny wouldn’t be receiving his either, would he? You don’t think the people Lizzie is stayin’ with are keepin’ yer letters from her, do you?’
‘The thought had occurred to me,’ Maggie admitted, ‘but why would they do that? According to Danny they adore Lizzie, though the man of the house is really poorly at the moment.’
‘What’s up wi’ him?’
Maggie shrugged as she coaxed Lucy to drink some of the warm milk she had just made her. ‘Danny didn’t say. I feel as if I’m being torn in two at the minute. I’d hoped to get to Wales to see them both soon. I can’t put off telling them about their dad forever. But then Lucy came down with this cold and I don’t feel right going while she’s not well. On top of that, I have a pile of sewing to catch up on once I’ve delivered this wedding dress, and I can’t afford the train fare till I’ve done that and been paid for them.’
‘I could lend yer a bit,’ Ellen offered.
Maggie shook her head. ‘Thanks, Mam. I appreciate the offer but I can manage,’ she told her proudly.
As Ellen looked across at her daughter, it struck her just how much she had changed in the past months. Maggie had always been a quiet, subservient sort of girl, but now the stronger side of her personality had emerged, which was just as well, from where Ellen was standing. She certainly had enough on her plate at the moment, there was no denying it, and although Ellen was happy to help out wherever she could, she didn’t want to look as if she was interfering, so she remained a quiet presence in the background, ready to step forward, when and if she was needed.
Placing her ration books on the table, she said, ‘Will you be wantin’ me to have Lucy while you pop up the shops later on?’ When Maggie nodded she pushed the books towards her. ‘Good, then would yer mind pickin’ my shoppin’ up while yer about it? Ain’t no sense in us both venturin’ out in this weather, is there?’
It was on the tip of Maggie’s tongue to tell her mother that it would do her good to get out for a while. But mindful that it could cause yet another argument if she did, she simply nodded and stayed tight-lipped.
As Maggie prepared to go to the shops later that afternoon she was shocked to see the date on the ration books. It was 14 November already, which meant that Christmas was racing towards them all. Her brow furrowed at the thought. Things had been quiet in Coventry recently; there had been no air raids for weeks, for which Maggie was grateful. The thought of having to drag Lucy out to a freezing cold shelter in the dead of night didn’t bear thinking about. Even so she was quite aware that the city might have been lulled into a false sense of security. Every day the newspapers were full of the latest atrocities of war and she knew that it was a long way from being over. Her hopes of having the twins home for Christmas were dashed as the days passed with no sign of the war abating. The thought of spending it apart from them brought tears stinging to her eyes. It felt like years since she’d seen her children. It didn’t matter that she was merely one of many parents in the country who were in exactly the same boat; the knowledge brought her no comfort and she missed Danny and Lizzie more with every day that passed.
Pulling herself together with an enormous effort, she began to put her coat on. Her mother would be over at any minute to look after Lucy, and Maggie had no intention of letting Ellen find her crying. She still had Lucy to worry about and she must make her a priority until such a time as it was safe to have the twins home again. As she had discovered, life went on - even with a war raging all around them.
As evening descended on the city, a thick mist began to form across the pavements, turning the icy paving slabs into a skating rink.
‘You’ll be lucky to get there and back without goin’ yer length,’ Ellen told Maggie and Jo as she settled herself into the fireside chair.
Maggie laughed. ‘You’re about right there, Mam, especially as we’ve to jiggle this box between us.’
Crossing to an enormous cardboard box that she’d managed to scrounge from the corner shop, she opened the lid and she and Jo began to carefully fold the wedding dress into it.
‘Christ, do yer reckon it’s big enough?’ Jo remarked. ‘An’ fancy deliverin’ such a lovely dress in a box that were used fer packin’ soap powder.’
Maggie eyed the OMO logo with amusement. ‘Well, this was the only one I could get that were big enough,’ she explained. ‘The other boxes were all too small, an’ the dress would have been creased to high heaven by the time we got it there.’
Once the train had been carefully folded in to Maggie’s satisfaction, she closed the lid. ‘Right, that’s it. I dare say we’d better get off. There’s a rare frost settling already so the sooner this is done the better. Are you quite sure you’ll be all right with Lucy, Mam?’
‘Huh! Why wouldn’t I be? We’re always all right, ain’t we, me darlin’?’
Lucy snuggled down into her gran’s lap, clutching her dolly and smiling up at her adoringly; as Maggie looked at them in the glow from the fire, love for them both made her heart sing. She and Jo grabbed the box between them and started towards the door. It was almost six o’clock.
‘We should be back fer half seven at the latest, Mam. See yer later.’ Suddenly dropping her side of the box, she hurried back to kiss them both soundly. ‘I know I may not say it often, but I do love you both,’ she whispered.
Ellen blinked away tears at the unexpected show of emotion. ‘Get off wi’ yer, yer daft ha’porth,’ she said shakily. ‘You’ll have me blartin’ in a minute.’
Maggie hurried back to where Jo was waiting for her, and in no time at all they were on their way. The box was as light as a feather but awkward to manoeuvre round corners, which had Jo cursing in no time as they struggled along the almost-deserted streets. High above the city, the barrage balloons bobbed on their strings like enormous grey elephants and the spire of the Cathedral stood proud.
; It took them nearly half an hour to reach Godiva Lane, by which time their hands were so cold that they’d turned blue.
‘It would be just our bloody luck if we got there an’ they weren’t in,’ Jo grumbled.
‘They’ll be in,’ Maggie assured her as she peered at the house numbers. Stopping outside one, she rapped at the front door and was rewarded by the sound of footsteps.
The mother of the bride-to-be answered the door and beamed when she saw Maggie standing there. ‘Why, is it all done?’ she asked excitedly, and when Maggie nodded, she ushered her and Jo inside. ‘You couldn’t have come at a better time,’ the woman assured her. ‘Betty is just in from work so she’ll be able to have a final try-on before the big day.’
When Maggie and Jo left the house later, Maggie was beaming from ear to ear. The bride had looked truly breathtaking in the dress and it had fitted her like a glove, which was a huge relief. Better still was the fact that Maggie’s wages were tucked deep in her coat pocket, with a couple of pounds extra as a bonus.
‘I can afford to buy the twins a little present now,’ she confided to Jo.
‘Why don’t yer treat yerself fer a change?’ Jo suggested. ‘Every spare penny yer get goes on either the kids or the house, from what I can see of it.’
Now that they no longer had to balance the box between them, Jo had sunk her hands as far down in her coat pockets as they would go, but she was still shivering with cold.
‘There’s nothin’ I need,’ Maggie told her. Jo was just about to come back with a caustic reply when the sound of sirens suddenly pierced the air.
‘Oh no,’ Maggie groaned. ‘We’re still a good half an hour away from home an’ me mam’s there all alone with Lucy.’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Jo assured her. ‘I bet even now she’ll be bundlin’ her up an’ headin’ fer the shelter. Yer mam ain’t daft.’
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