So, Kathy thought, with a pang of sympathy for the other girl, Muriel had acted so very nobly that Tony was still unaware that his own mother had been instrumental in bringing about the end of the affair. Muriel had loved him so much that she had spared his feelings. She had even protected his mother, who certainly didn’t deserve such thoughtfulness. Yet, Kathy supposed, Muriel had realized that in telling the whole truth she would hurt Tony too.
‘Tony – please be honest with me. It’s important. If Muriel were to explain everything and – and wanted you back, would you—?’
He didn’t even let her finish. ‘No,’ he cried vehemently. ‘No. It’s you I love, Kathy. Really I do and – I don’t suppose you’ll believe me – ’ he gave a wry, lopsided grin that melted her heart – ‘but I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Not the way I feel about you.’
‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’ Kathy laughed flippantly.
But Tony’s face was utterly serious. ‘No, I swear I haven’t ever said that before. Not to anyone.’
‘Not even to Muriel?’ Now Kathy’s question was serious. She needed to know.
He looked directly into her eyes and she knew he was speaking the truth when he said soberly, ‘Not even to Muriel.’
Kathy gave a huge sigh that came from deep within her being. She believed him and vowed she would never again mention his relationship with Muriel, though she spared a sympathetic thought for the other girl and hoped that she too might one day find the kind of happiness that Kathy herself now felt.
But there was still one problem – apart from the obvious one of the war – that overshadowed their happiness. Tony’s mother.
‘He doesn’t want to take me home to meet his mother.’
‘Are you surprised?’ Jemima retorted tartly. ‘He’s afraid the same thing will happen again.’
‘He doesn’t seem to know the full story about what happened between his mother and Muriel,’ Kathy said and related what Tony had told her.
Jemima pulled a sceptical expression. ‘You surprise me. But then, if I think about it, Muriel was so besotted with him that I expect she sacrificed her own feelings for the sake of his. How very noble!’
‘You don’t sound as if you admire her for that.’
‘I don’t. She should have stood up to his mother. Fought for him.’ She glanced at Kathy over the top of the steel-rimmed spectacles she wore for reading or knitting and sewing. Her busy hands were already knitting socks for the troops. She had joined the local branch of the WVS and, two or three evenings a week, she was disappearing to meetings involved with war work. ‘I don’t expect you’ll give in to that dreadful woman quite so easily, will you?’
Kathy grinned. ‘You bet your life I won’t.’
‘Good.’
‘Only thing is – I can’t get him to take me home to meet his parents.’
‘Then go and see them yourself. Nothing to stop you.’
Kathy gasped. ‘You mean – on my own? Without him being there? Without him even knowing?’
Jemima pondered for a moment. ‘No . . .’ she said slowly. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that. But what I would do is to tell him that if he is serious about you, then you would like to meet his parents and that if he doesn’t take you, you will go on your own.’
Kathy stared at her. ‘You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly what I’ll do.’ Then she laughed ruefully. ‘Only thing is, I’m a bit stuck if he turns the tables on me and demands to meet my parents too.’
Jemima smiled. ‘Ah, well now, that’s another story.’
‘Are we having a Morrison shelter in the front room or an Anderson shelter in the back yard?’
‘Neither,’ Jemima answered promptly. ‘There’s a big cupboard under the stairs. You can get into it from the front room. I’m going to clear that out and make it so we can both get in it. It’ll be as safe as any shelter. More so, probably.’
‘Right you are. Can I help?’
‘I tell you what you can do. Pack up my mother’s best tea service out of the china cabinet into boxes and we’ll push them to the narrow end of the cupboard.’ She was thoughtful for a moment, then murmured. ‘I’m sure there’s other things I ought to put in there for safety, but I can’t think what at the moment.’
Kathy smiled. Jemima had so much on her mind now, she often seemed to go off into a little world of her own. The girl rather suspected she was reliving the events of the last war and that her memories were far from pleasant. But she dared not ask. Jemima Robinson was not the kind of person one asked personal questions. Instead, Kathy said brightly, ‘Where can I get some suitable boxes?’
‘Mm? Oh yes. Boxes. Er – ’ Jemima wrinkled her forehead – ‘you could try the shop on Monks Road. They might have something.’
A little later Kathy returned triumphantly with two sturdy boxes and something wrapped up in newspaper. ‘Guess what I’ve got? Four sausages and two lovely pieces of fish.’
‘Well done,’ Jemima smiled. ‘We’d better make the most of them. I’m sure there are going to be shortages very soon. I hear they’re cutting the bus services already because of a shortage of fuel, and men to drive them, if it comes to that.’
‘They’ll have to take on women bus drivers then, won’t they?’ Kathy laughed jokingly, but Jemima’s answer was quite serious. ‘Yes, they will.’
‘Kathy, please don’t do that,’ Tony begged.
‘Then take me to meet them yourself.’
Already it was almost the end of October. It had snowed during the day, but they were cosy, sitting close together on the old sofa in Jemima’s front room, the only light coming from the flickering fire.
Tony ran his hand distractedly through his hair. ‘I can’t. I really can’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Because – because – ’ he took a deep breath – ‘Mother won’t like you. Oh, that sounds awful,’ he added swiftly, gripping her hand tightly in apology. ‘It’s not you personally she won’t like. She doesn’t like anyone I take home. Anyone who I might marry and leave home for.’
‘She wants to keep you at home, tied to her apron strings forever, does she?’
He smiled ruefully. ‘I suppose that’s about the size of it, but put like that, so bluntly – it – it makes me sound very weak.’
Kathy did not contradict him outright. Instead she said slowly, ‘I can see that it’s very difficult for you. If she’s ill and depends on both you and your father, it would be rather brutal of you just to leave. I do see that.’ She bit her lip, longing to ask if his mother really was as ill as she made out. Instead, she toned down the bluntness a little by asking, ‘How ill is she?’
Tony shrugged. ‘Who’s to say? When she has one of her attacks, she certainly seems genuinely poorly. And the doctor’s never once hinted that she’s not really ill. Mind you, he gets paid for every visit and her stays in the private nursing home – marvellous though it is – cost us quite a lot.’
‘When you say “us”, I take it you mean that you contribute?’
He nodded. ‘Dad works very hard. Does a lot of overtime whenever he can get it, but even then he couldn’t afford the fees on his wage.’
He returned her steady gaze. ‘You’re wondering if she’s putting it on just to make me stay at home. To keep me tied to her.’
‘No,’ Kathy said carefully. ‘I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t accuse her of that. At least,’ she added, trying to lighten their conversation a little, ‘not yet.’
But Tony could not see anything funny in his situation. He was caught between his ailing mother and the girl he loved. ‘Kathy, I know this must sound like a trite line, but I swear it isn’t. I’ve truly never felt this way about any other girl. And oh yes, I know there’ve been a few, but I’ve never – ever – asked anyone else to marry me.’ He squeezed her hands. ‘Marry me, Kathy. Please – say you’ll be my wife.’
Tears sprang to her eyes. Tough as she could be, Kathy was always moved by a romantic gesture. There had
been so few of them in her life and certainly from no one that she cared deeply about. Even in that moment – the happiest moment in her life – she spared a fleeting thought for poor Morry. How happy she would have made him if she had been able to have given him the answer she was about to give Tony. And how much simpler life would have been. She would have pleased everyone. Her father, her mother – especially her poor, dear mother – and even the Robinsons would have been delighted. But she didn’t love Morry, not in the way she loved Tony.
She put her arms around his neck and gently kissed his lips, murmuring. ‘Yes, oh yes, please.’
He held her close and they kissed long and hard.
‘Let’s go and tell Aunt Jemima,’ Kathy said at last. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell the whole world.’
‘Hey, hey, wait a minute. Slow down,’ he protested, but he was laughing as he said it. ‘Let’s not say anything. Not until I’ve bought you a ring and we can announce it officially.’
Kathy was disappointed. ‘But surely we can tell Aunt Jemima?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t. I – I must tell my parents first.’
Kathy felt her heart sink. Still, he was afraid of his mother’s reaction.
‘I see,’ she said flatly.
‘Darling,’ he caught hold of her hand. ‘Don’t look like that. Just a day or two. That’s all I ask. Please?’
She forced a smile and nodded. ‘All right. A week. I’ll give you a week.’ She tapped him playfully on the end of his nose. ‘But no longer. That gives you plenty of time to pick out an engagement ring for me and also to tell your mother and father. Then next Sunday afternoon, we’ll go to see them.’
Tony pulled in a deep breath and now it was his turn to force a smile. ‘All right,’ he agreed and Kathy tried hard to ignore the reluctance in his tone.
Seventeen
Beatrice Kendall was nothing like Kathy had imagined. True, she lay languidly on a couch in front of a roaring fire in the front room of the semi-detached house. The room was cluttered with heavy mahogany furniture and ornaments on every available flat surface. But there, any resemblance to Kathy’s romantic picture of a pretty, but delicate, woman ended.
Tony’s mother was sharp-featured and beady-eyed. Her face was pale and thin, her grey hair straight and cut in a twenties-style bob.
‘And who might this be?’ was her greeting as Tony ushered Kathy, rather nervously she thought, into the room. The woman spoke with an upper-class accent that Kathy was sure was put on.
‘This is Kathy, Mother.’
‘Kathy who?’
‘Kathy Burton. She – she’s a friend of Miss Robinson.’
‘Miss Robinson? You mean Miss Robinson at the store?’
‘That’s right.’
The woman’s thin lips curled with obvious disapproval. ‘And why have you brought her here, pray?’
‘I – she wanted to meet you.’
‘To meet me? Whatever for?’
Kathy stepped forward, plastered a smile on her face and held out her hand.
‘Tony and I have been going out together now for over seven months so I thought it was high time I met you. And Mr Kendall too, of course.’
There was a brief, fleeting glimpse of fury in Beatrice’s eyes and a tightening – if that were possible – of her thin lips. But only Kathy saw all this, for the next moment, Beatrice covered her face with her bony, wrinkled hands and let out a pathetic cry. ‘Oh, Anthony, how could you?’
‘Please don’t upset yourself, Mother. Kathy and I are just friends. We—’
‘We’re getting engaged,’ Kathy interrupted.
Now the woman let out a high-pitched wail and let her head fall back against the pillows. Tony hurried forward, almost pushing Kathy aside in his haste.
‘You’d better go,’ he muttered to Kathy as he bent over his mother. ‘She’s having one of her turns.’
‘I’m going nowhere,’ Kathy said firmly. ‘Are you calling the doctor?’
‘No, no,’ Beatrice protested weakly. ‘There’s no need. I just need rest and quiet. You’ve given me such a shock, Anthony. How could you do it?’ Her face crumpled and she dissolved into tears, dabbing at her cheeks with her lace handkerchief. ‘How could you become engaged without even telling me?’
Kathy noticed the word ‘me’ rather than ‘us’ and she was even more shocked and hurt when Tony cast an accusing look at her and said harshly, ‘I really think you’d better go, Kathy.’
Her only answer was to sit down in the armchair near the fire. ‘I said, “I’m going nowhere,” and I meant it.’
‘Please, Kathy . . .’
‘Anthony, my pills . . . They’re on my bedside table. I forgot to bring them down with me this morning.’
‘I’ll get them,’ he said at once and hurried out of the room.
The second the door closed and they were alone, Beatrice sat up and said in a strong, clear voice, ‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at. My Anthony will never marry the likes of you.’
‘Really?’ Kathy replied keeping her voice pleasant. ‘And how do you know what “the likes of me” is exactly, since you haven’t taken the trouble to find out anything about me? I could be anyone.’
‘Exactly!’ Her glance scanned Kathy from head to toe and her lips curled again. ‘Just look at you. Cheap shoes and handbag and a cotton dress. Home-made, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘The dress was bought at the store,’ Kathy replied calmly.
‘A “sale” item, I’ve no doubt.’
Now the woman had hit the nail on the head, so Kathy remained silent, while Beatrice gave a smirk of satisfaction.
‘You’re a nobody,’ she hissed as they both heard footsteps on the stairs. ‘And the best thing you can do for Tony is to disappear out of his life. He’ll never marry you. I’ll make sure of that . . .’
As the door opened, she lay back against the pillows again and closed her eyes and gave a weak gasp.
‘Here we are, Mother.’ He was carrying a small brown bottle and a glass of water. He hurried across the room and knelt on the floor beside her chair, holding out the glass. She opened her eyes and raised herself a little, wincing as she did so. She took the water with a trembling hand and held out her other hand for him to shake a pill out of the bottle into her palm.
‘Thank you, darling,’ she murmured and lay back again, adding bravely, ‘I’ll be all right now. It was just such a shock. Such a terrible shock. You know I can’t do with visitors and for her to tell me such news . . .’
‘I’m sorry, Mother—’
What more penitent noises he might have made were cut short by the sound of the back door of the house banging.
‘That’ll be Dad,’ Tony said and got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and tell him what’s happened. Kathy – ’ his voice was firmer now – ‘you’d better come with me. We’ll leave Mother to rest.’
As Kathy rose reluctantly, Tony took hold of her elbow and propelled her towards the door. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled brightly. ‘I’ll see you again, Mrs Kendall.’
Again, there was a fleeting vicious look in Beatrice’s cold eyes. ‘I don’t think so,’ she murmured so that only Kathy might hear.
In the kitchen, Kathy came face to face with the man she had encountered briefly in the street. He was sitting at the table, reading his newspaper. He had not changed from his working clothes and lines of weariness were etched deeply into his face.
He looked up as Tony and Kathy entered. He nodded briefly at his son but his glance rested on Kathy. He smiled at her and some of the tiredness disappeared from his face. His eyes were dark, like his son’s, and kindly.
‘Hello, love. You’re the lass I saw out in the street a while back, aren’t you?’
Kathy nodded.
‘Never forget a pretty face,’ George Kendall chuckled. ‘I’d shek yar ’and, love. But ah’m a bit mucky.’
Kathy stared at him in amazement. He spoke with a broad Lincolnshire dialect. She
warmed to him at once. Stepping forward, she held out her hand and her smile was wide and genuine as she said, ‘I’m used to good honest muck, Mr Kendall. Born and bred on a farm. Please, don’t get up,’ she added swiftly as he made to rise. ‘You look as if you’ve had a hard day.’
‘Aye well, I have to tek the overtime when I can, lass. Needs must.’
‘Can I make you a cup of tea or a meal even?’
‘Aw no, lass, I couldn’t possibly impose on you like that. You’m a guest . . .’
Kathy laughed. ‘I’m hoping to become family . . .’
‘Kathy, please . . .’ Tony began warningly, but she ignored him. Somehow she knew instinctively that she would not get the same reaction from Mr Kendall that she had had from his wife. She was right. A beam spread across his face. ‘Well, I nivver.’ He glanced at his son. ‘Ya’ve got yasen a good ’un here, lad.’
Tony smiled thinly, still uncomfortable.
Kathy glanced around the neat kitchen. Whoever kept it so clean and tidy, she wondered. Perhaps they had a daily help.
‘What can I do? Tell me what you’d planned for your evening meal and I’ll get it ready.’
‘Ah well, I haven’t got much in, lass. Haven’t had time to stand in the queues. I’m not hungry when I get in from work. The Mrs eats like a bird and I thought Tony’d be out again. If I’d known he was bringing you home, though, I’d have got something nice in.’
‘Then I’ll just see what I can rustle up for us,’ Kathy said and began opening cupboard doors.
A little later, she set the three plates of food – an omelette with potatoes and vegetables – on the table and called Tony and his father to sit down, saying, ‘I’ll just take a tray into Mrs Kendall.’
Tony leapt up and almost snatched the tray from her hands. ‘I’ll take it.’
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