Family Pride

by Family Pride (retail) (epub)

  Gilly came the moment she heard he was ill, blaming herself for allowing him to witness the air-raid. She asked what she could do while they waited for the doctor.

  “If them skinny legs of yours can manage, what about a cup of tea?” he asked in an unrecognisably low voice. In pain as he was, he managed a wink.

  * * *

  The repairs to the shop were carried out with surprising speed and apart from the shattered counter, which they weren’t urgently needing, the place was soon clean and back in business. By the time Granfer had recovered from what the doctor called a little set-back, the place was reasonably normal.

  With the second counter removed the shop looked surprisingly large and Gilly put a round table in its place with a bowl of chrysanthemums on it. When Mrs Smoky came in for a chat with Bessie, she pulled up the chair that usually stood beside the counter and settled herself at the table.

  “What about a cup of tea, Gilly, love, if you aren’t busy?” Edna suggested. Gilly complied and the habit began of Mrs Smoky and other friends of Bessie and Fanny stopping by to spend a while sitting at what became Gilly’s table.

  It was the tradition, since the call up had separated the family, that when letters arrived from Vic, Viv or Sam, they wouldn’t be opened until the evening, when all the family were present. On the morning Gerry had suggested moving in with the Jenkins, three letters arrived and Bessie collected them from the postman’s hands with excitement.

  “All three on the same day!” she said as Fanny came through the shop having just left Gerry. “What a treat. We won’t tell Dadda, leave it to be a surprise.”

  It had been Fanny’s intention to discuss Gerry’s proposal immediately but she decided that the evening, with the family gathered to read the letters might be a better time. She took off the edge-to-edge coat that was smart but unsuitable for the late November and smiled at her sister.

  “Lovely that will be. What a coincidence, three coming at the same time. Now I’m back so you can go off. Sorry I was a bit late, but I’ve been to take another look at Gerry’s house. Ruined it is, I don’t think they’ll be back living there in a hurry. The whole street is as good as gone. Lucky we were to have got away with a few broken windows and a pile of soot and dust.”

  The shop was quiet that afternoon and she spent the time knitting. She was kept busy making socks for her four brothers and her father but she also managed to knit for the Forces Comforts organisation. As she clicked the needles and completed row after row, her mind dwelt on Gerry Daniels. First walking her to church, with Gilly walking beside them, now the proposition that he move in. Her eyes showed excitement as she imagined them sleeping under the same roof. Surely he was more than a little in love with her? He wouldn’t move in and give the impression they were a couple unless he really cared?

  A shadow passed across the newly replaced shop windows and she shivered. She was vulnerable, loving him as she did. There was fear deep inside her so real it was like a lump of cold granite: the fear that all this gradual build up of a romance would suddenly end, that he would walk away from her and seek someone more vivacious and beautiful.

  Gerry was such an exciting man that she doubted her own attraction, couldn’t believe that she had something that he found irresistible. Yet, he showed signs of increasing interest, and the way he looked at her made her melt. He couldn’t be pretending. What would be his reason? She frantically tried to make herself believe in her own ability to make him happy.

  Chapter Six

  Granfer Jenkins settled himself back on his pillow after finishing the last mouthful of his meal. Now he could hear the family trouping up the stairs to his room. That could mean one of several things: some problem in the bake-house; a query about some payment; or, and he hoped this was the case, it could mean there was a letter from one of the boys. His small hands fidgeted and he crossed his fingers childishly as the door opened and he saw first Bessie, then Fanny enter. Behind them was Gilly and then Ivor. For a moment he almost hated Ivor for being his son when Sam was not. He pushed aside the un-Christian anger and forced enthusiasm into his reedy voice.

  “What is it, then, come on tell me?” He leaned forward away from his piled pillows and his eager face made them all smile.

  “From the look of you you’ve guessed, Dad! Yes we’ve heard from the boys.” Bessie smiled. “But I don’t think you could have guessed that there were letters from all three.” She held them in a fan for him to see, then put on her reading glasses as the rest of the family found seats and settled to listen to the news from far away. “Now, whose turn to read them? One each, is it?” She handed a letter to Gilly and one to her sister. “Mine first.”

  The twins, Viv and Victor, wrote letters so brief they were less than people wrote on holiday postcards. They usually remarked about the food being adequate, the weather being stormy, and the pals they were making and wanting to bring home to meet them once the war was ended. The rest, what there was of it, was “blue-pencilled” so it couldn’t be read, the censor had obviously thought their words a danger to the war effort if read by the wrong eyes and had made them completely indecipherable.

  Sam’s was different. His home-sickness rang through every sentence. It was Gilly who read his aloud.

  It will be past the time for blackberries by the time you read this, but I bet you’ve all enjoyed a few plates of Bessie’s delicious tarts. Have you made any bramble jam? If so will you save me some? I’m sweltering under a clear blue sky in temperatures you will all envy and, for the purpose, there’s me thinking with longing of the damp Autumn days and cool winds you are probably experiencing. Sandy beaches are never far from my thoughts. When I come home I hope you’ll have a blackberry tart waiting for me, it’s what I dream about. That and the cool damp winds of home.

  “North Africa. I’m sure of it. That’s where they are,” Bessie whispered.

  “Perhaps that’s where the fighting is going to be,” Fanny added, also in a whisper. “Perhaps we’re going to invade North Africa and the navy is there ready to—”

  “Keep your opinions to yourselves you two!” Granfer warned. “Don’t you know careless talk costs lives? Twp you are, the pair of you.”

  “I won’t talk about it outside these walls, Dad, but I’m sure that’s where he is,” Bessie said.

  As they stood and kissed Granfer before returning downstairs to wash the dishes, Fanny said, “Before you all go, I have something I want to discuss.” She waited until they were all settled in their chairs again. Looking at her sister, she began, “It’s about Gerry.”

  “Asked you to marry him has he then?” Ivor asked pertly. “About time, too, all this shilly-shallying makes people talk, that’s what it does.” He tilted his head to look at them all through glasses that were bent and twisted out of shape. Hardly hearing what he was saying, Gilly went and straightened them for him. He’d been sleeping in them again she guessed.

  “Shut up, Ivor,” Granfer said sharply.

  “What d’you mean, talk?” Fanny demanded.

  “Getting all he wants without being churched, that’s what!”

  “Shut up, Ivor, or damn me, I’ll get out of this bed and shut you up myself,” Granfer puffed and he began to fold the bedclothes back from his legs. He looked at Fanny’s reddening face.

  “Go on, Fanny, ignore that spiteful bugger. Tell us what you were going to say.”

  “His mother’s house was bombed as you know,” she said in a shaking voice. “And, and he was wondering if he could stay here, just for a while, as a paying guest.”

  Bessie heard the slight groan from Gilly’s throat and shook her head at her disapprovingly. Granfer saw how embarrassed his daughter had been by the unkind words of Ivor and, like Bessie, he felt a surge of sympathy.

  “Why not. He helped us out, didn’t he? It’s a fair request. And at times like this we have to help where we can. And for the purpose there are the boys’ rooms doing nothing. What d’you think, Bessie? Will it be a lot of extra work for
you to have another one to cook for?”

  “Dadda, it’s my turn to say something. I want to work more in the bake-house and less in the house and shop. Now Gilly’s old enough to help out, I wonder if she would like to take on the family cooking? Her Mam and me, well, we’d help at first, ’til she got the hang of things.”

  Granfer looked at Gilly. “Well?”

  “I’ll be stuck in the house a lot, won’t I?” she protested.

  “Not if you don’t want to be. There’ll be shopping to do and I dare say you’ll find some free time in the afternoons.”

  Gilly nodded. It might be more interesting than just housework and clearing up in the bake-house. And free afternoons was a strong incentive to agree.

  “I’ve got something to say now,” Granfer said with a sigh. “Can I have another cup of tea, somebody, I’m sinking after all this gossiping.”

  So it was decided, Gerry was to have the room below Granfer’s and Gilly was to take over the family meals.

  * * *

  Ivor left them to their chattering. They ignored him anyway except when they grumbled about his need to shave or to change his socks. Picking up a jacket and a cap he wandered out of the shop and up the road. He wished the school was open. He liked watching the children.

  The night was chill but no siren disturbed the quiet and he walked through the silent, dark town without any real destination in mind. The houses became fewer and the cold bit deeper as he reached the road approaching the beach. It was there he saw Gerry and, chuckling, he hid.

  His eyes used to the darkness he had no difficulty recognising Gerry or Derek Green. The two of them were taking furniture from a van and carrying it into a house on the parade that faced the old harbour. Creeping closer, easily hidden by the darkness, Ivor saw them deliver a small table, a chaise longue, a grandfather clock and several pictures. Derek, he noticed with a grin, did most of the lifting, Gerry struggling and making a real pig’s ear of the task.

  At the doorway a woman paid them and they got back into the Green’s Bakery van and drove off. Ivor trotted after them. He saw the faint tail-light disappear and realised they had gone into a public house. He pushed open the door and stared inside until someone glared and told him to; “Drop that curtain, boy, there’s a force nine gale sweeping round my feet.”

  The complaining voice made Gerry turn and see Ivor.

  He came over and demanded to know what he was doing. “Not following me are you?” he asked.

  “No,” Ivor said, lifting an arm to ward off an expected blow. “I was just walking, like. Saw you and Derek and wanted a look at what you were doing. Been delivering furniture have you?” It was so in character that Gerry believed him. For a moment he had wondered if Fanny was checking up on him.

  “Only a favour for a friend, Ivor,” Derek said.

  “Paid you well, did she?”

  “Come on in and have a drink,” Derek invited.

  Self-consciously, taking off his cap and crushing it in his nervous hands, Ivor obeyed. “I seen you before, doing favours and delivering,” Ivor said.

  “You have?”

  “Pictures I saw and some fancy silver stuff, too. And chairs. And a cupboard with a glass front, I saw that. Er—” Anxious to please them Ivor frowned in concentration and thought of the other items he had seen pass through their hands. Gerry and Derek soon realised that they had been seen delivering the furniture and other treasures they had bought cheaply from homeless people and sold at great profit. Gerry turned it into a game.

  “Not a word to Fanny, mind,” he said with a man-to-man smile. “We men have to have our secrets, don’t we? A surprise it is, money for a surprise for Fanny.”

  He and Derek flattered the man, told him they knew he was far smarter than others suspected and gained an ally for life. From that moment Ivor would help Gerry to cover his movements so that visiting his lady friends was easier and, as a reward, Gerry paid Ivor in sweets and the occasional gift of money.

  Walking home a little the worse for the drink he had taken, Ivor stopped at the school and stood looking into the empty yard. Tomorrow he’d come back and watch while the children played their games. The tune of one of them ran through his head and he lifted his voice and sang with the voices in his mind:

  Salvation army free from sin,

  Went to Heaven in a corned beef tin.

  The corned beef tin was made of glass,

  They all fell out – upon the grass.

  He giggled as he thought of the different last line they sang when the teachers were out of hearing, and a blush suffused his face as he mouthed the rude words.

  * * *

  Derek went home with a roll of pound and ten-shilling notes in his back pocket, feeling pleased with himself. With the best of his collection sold and on its way to Bristol and the rest sold to local buyers glad of the chance of something good and willing to pay for the privilege, he had made enough to recover from the recent expenses and had some over.

  “Here you are, Shirley, go and buy yourself something pretty,” he said, peeling off ten pounds. “Time you had a little treat.”

  “Thank you love, but, I was hoping you’d give me a little more than this.” She smiled at him, slipping across to sit on his lap, looking up with shining eyes into her husband’s serious face. “It’s for you as well as me, and for Paul, of course,” she wheedled.

  “What d’you want this time,” he sighed, but with no sign of censure. He was used to his wife’s extravagances and today he felt able to indulge her, after all, she was the reason for making the money, wasn’t she?

  “It’s this old three piece suite, love, it’s getting shabby and leather-cloth is so cold. I fancy a nice moquette in cherry red. There’s a lovely one in Morgan’s window and—”

  “Wait a minute, Shirley, can’t it wait ’til we redecorate in the spring?”

  “I’ve arranged for the decorator to come next week. I thought it would be nice to have it done for Paul’s birthday. There’ll be lots of people calling and, well, I like to have everything looking smart.”

  “Paul’s birthday? You’re having a party here for him?”

  “No, of course not, Derek, love. There’s no room here! No, I’ve booked the hall on Bessemer Street for a sit-down meal and a dance. Fifty for the meal but there’ll be about hundred there in the dance. We’d never fit them in here, love. I’ve ordered a new outfit in a bright pink, you’ll love it, and oh, you’re due at the tailors for a fitting for your new suit on Wednesday. D’you know, love, I’m sure that Gerry Daniels is wearing made to measure shirts. You must have some, too, Derek. We can’t have him shaming us.”

  “No, Shirley, I don’t want them.”

  “Careful, Derek love, or I’ll have them monogrammed, too; ‘Derek loves Shirley’! How would that suit you then? Or ‘Derek Green belongs to Shirley’, or ‘Hands off, all you lovely young things, he’s mine’.”

  Laughing at her fun and looking a very different man from the sullen person most people saw, Derek finally asked, “And how much will all this cost?”

  “Two hundred should cover the lot.”

  “Two hundred? Hell’s bells, Shirley, a wedding wouldn’t cost that much!”

  “Paul’s wedding will. He’ll have the biggest splash this town has ever seen, just wait and see.” Her eyes glowed at the prospect and Derek handed over the money he had just made.

  * * *

  Although she had agreed, Gilly felt a little resentful at having to take over the family meals. With food rationed it wasn’t an easy task to provide breakfast, dinner, tea and supper for them all. Fortunately Uncle Ivor seemed content with a bread and butter meal at tea-time – when he was to be found – and with her uncles and their more enthusiastic appetites away, it might not be too bad. She sat that first evening in Granfer’s room and discussed with him the meals the family usually enjoyed and together they made a list of fourteen days’ menus.

  “Damn me, Gilly, I never thought you’d be so organised.�
��

  “It’s because I’m new to the job,” she smiled. “With Mam and Auntie Bessie, they can look at the clock at twelve and have dinner on the table at one without having thought of anything like shopping, just knowing their store-cupboard. And knowing how long things take. Should I follow a cookery book or Mam’s instructions, Granfer?”

  “Both,” he said firmly. “Can I put in some special requests, as I’m a favoured friend of the cook?”

  “Let me guess, no scones!”

  “I’ll show you how to make them proper, shall I?”

  “Yes, please, but when?”

  “Tonight, when the rest are fast asleep? What d’you say, shall we do a bit of night-time wandering again?”

  Granfer refused to cook scones in the gas oven, insisting that the smell of gas ruined the flavour. It didn’t take long for the oven fires to be revived and although the sound of the shovel seemed deafening to their ears, no one woke and came to investigate and Granfer parted with the secret of his scones.

  They ate the tasty snack at two o’clock and Gilly saw him back up to his room; the thirty-four stairs seeming endless as he had to rest on each small landing. She was afraid he had overdone things and would collapse, but although the climb back to his bed took a long time and was obviously exhausting, he seemed far brighter for the nightly escapade. He slept for most of the morning, not even waking for his ten o’clock cup of tea.

  * * *

  On Tuesday 3 December the Food Minister told the nation that there would be extra food rations for Christmas. Gilly listened to the radio and held her breath. Today was her seventeenth birthday and if the promise was of extra fats and sugar she might be able to make herself a birthday cake. To hear that the extra was only two ounces of tea and four ounces of sugar was a disappointment. It would have to be another fatless sponge cake.