The Victory Girls

by Joanna Toye

  There was still one nagging question, and Jim asked it.

  ‘Mrs Tunnicliffe,’ he said gently. ‘You have the money. Why not buy these things?’

  ‘Oh but don’t you see?’ Mrs Tunnicliffe shocked them with intensity of her reaction. ‘It was different when she was here! I wouldn’t have dreamt of taking anything! Never! But now … to make it a financial transaction, that would ruin it! This way it’s as if the things are still a secret, but a secret between me and Violet together. Just the two of us.’ She looked at them, pleading, hopeful. ‘Does that make sense?’

  Not much, thought Lily, and then … well, yes, maybe. Who was she to say what losing a child did to you? She crouched down by Mrs Tunnicliffe and, boldly, took her hand.

  ‘I can understand that, I think,’ she said. ‘But it can’t go on, can it? Not now we know.’

  Jim had been standing by the window, but he came over to add weight to what Lily was saying.

  ‘You’re not a professional shoplifter,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later you’ll be caught, and publicly, and that would be dreadful for you.’

  ‘And for Violet,’ added Lily, because as far as Mrs Tunnicliffe was concerned, Violet was ever-present.

  ‘I know. I know. But what’s going to happen?’ asked Mrs Tunnicliffe pathetically. ‘Do you have to report me? And what about all these things?’

  ‘These aren’t all from Marlows, are they?’ said Jim. ‘I can see that by looking, but they’re not the most important thing right now. As Lily says, we know, and we have to do something about it.’

  ‘You mean go to Cedric Marlow.’ Mrs Tunnicliffe was holding back tears. ‘What if he goes to the police?’

  Lily and Jim knew the answer to that. Most stores had stern notices pinned up – ‘Shoplifters: We Always Prosecute!’ – but Mr Marlow wasn’t of this persuasion. He thought any involvement with a criminal investigation would damage the store’s cherished reputation; apart from advertisements and good news stories, he’d do anything to keep the store’s name out of the papers. And certainly out of court.

  ‘He won’t,’ said Jim. ‘I can guarantee it.’

  ‘So you needn’t worry about that.’ Lily gently squeezed her hand, feeling awkward about what she had to say next. It felt so wrong to be talking to the older woman like this. ‘But please, Mrs Tunnicliffe, for your sake, and for Violet’s, you can’t go on doing this. At Marlows or anywhere else.’

  Mrs Tunnicliffe closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and scanned her haul of treasures. She reached out and touched the powder compact and the scarf, then the hairband and the bangle.

  ‘She’d have loved them, I know she would,’ she said.

  Chapter 5

  Lily and Jim were quiet when they left Mrs Tunnicliffe’s. Even Buddy seemed to sense their mood and trotted meekly along, looking wistfully at the privet hedges and not lingering for long at the lamp posts he simply couldn’t resist. Finally Lily spoke.

  ‘I hope it’s OK to leave her on her own,’ she fretted. ‘You don’t think … you don’t think she might do something stupid?’

  The thought had crossed Jim’s mind, but he’d dismissed it. And his job now was to bolster Lily up.

  ‘Lily!’ he soothed. ‘Come on. We gave her all the reassurance we could.’

  Lily had made them all some tea, and, daringly, a sandwich for Mrs Tunnicliffe, because she couldn’t see any evidence of an evening meal. She still hadn’t touched it by the time they’d left.

  ‘She’s not looking after herself properly. Why aren’t her sons visiting, or at least checking up on her?’

  Like Lily, Violet had two brothers.

  ‘They’re both doing some top-brass jobs in the war, aren’t they?’ said Jim reasonably. ‘They might be abroad by now and even if not, they’re most likely working all hours with all these rumours that we’re about to invade Europe.’

  ‘Could be.’

  Lily stopped to let Buddy inspect a dandelion sprouting from a crack in the pavement.

  ‘I can see what’s going to happen,’ Jim sighed. ‘You’re going to take her on as a cause. I know what you’re like.

  ‘I feel sort of responsible for her,’ said Lily, ‘if she’s got no one else. I always thought people like her were copers, you know – their big houses, breeding, stiff upper lip and all that. But think about it, Jim. You can’t keep anything private, can you, where we live, good or bad. The walls are thin, everyone’s in and out of each other’s houses all the time—’

  Jim made a noise that was a cross between a laugh and a snort.

  ‘Like Jean Crosbie?’ Dora’s next door neighbour was a known busybody. ‘Popping in on the pretext of borrowing a pastry brush, when she really wants to pass on the latest scandal?’

  Lily shook her head impatiently.

  ‘OK, maybe not her, but others – they’d be the first to help out. Mrs Tunnicliffe’d never be left on her own to manage like she is. Give me our set-up any day of the week, not some big house behind a long drive where nobody calls or knows how lonely or miserable you are, or because of their “breeding” doesn’t like to ask and you don’t like to tell them.’

  ‘But the colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under their skin,’ said Jim thoughtfully. ‘Kipling,’ he added when Lily looked baffled. ‘A poem. Well, more of a ditty – it’s a bit coarse, really, but you get my drift.’

  Lily shrugged.

  ‘If you mean they feel things just the same, then yes, I do. It’s like the WVS. At first some of the posher ones, like the organiser, Mrs Russell, the doctor’s wife, they seemed a bit standoffish, bossy – but actually they’re perfectly nice. Ordinary. And when you get them talking, they’re scared for their husbands and sons too, fed up with queuing and the blackout and Make Do and Mend, just like everyone else. And then they remember who they’re talking to, and it’s like they’ve let the side down and it’s all gung-ho again.’

  Jim suddenly dipped his head down and kissed her.

  ‘What was that for?’

  ‘Do I need a reason?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘All right. For being you,’ he said. ‘I love it when you suddenly spout off, thinking it out as you go.’

  Lily smiled up at him. She felt the relief and happiness she always felt, that she could always tell Jim her thoughts, however halting and half-formed, and he’d somehow understand.

  Buddy indicated he was finally ready to move on and bit by bit they left the leafy avenues and crescents behind and returned to their own sort, to the roads and streets. But Lily had learnt something that evening – or rather, she’d had something reinforced. She’d always try her hardest, go as far as she could in her job, and hope that she and Jim, when they set up home, might be a bit more comfortably off than her mother had been, having to scrimp and save. But she had no envy for really monied people and their way of life. She was very happy where she was.

  By next morning, she and Jim had come to another important conclusion. It was Lily who should go to Cedric Marlow and tell him about Mrs Tunnicliffe.

  ‘You saw her do it,’ Jim concluded. ‘And you know her better than I do. You knew Violet. If Uncle Cedric does cut up rough, though I don’t think he will, I think you’ll put up a better defence.’

  Lily had to agree. Admitting she’d witnessed an incident of shoplifting and not reported it at the time might not do much for her promotion prospects, but Marlows wasn’t the only one with a reputation to protect – Mrs Tunnicliffe had one too. What was Lily’s promised first sales status when set against that poor woman’s loss?

  It was unusual for one of the sales staff to see the store’s owner directly and Mr Marlow’s secretary tried to deflect her. But Lily stuck to her guns and was grudgingly granted ten minutes at noon. All she had to do was make sure she got the first dinner break which started at 11.30 – easily done as Rita always bagged the more reasonable time of 12.30 for herself. The poor junior would have to wait for her dinner today.

  At twel
ve sharp Lily presented herself at Mr Marlow’s door, knocked and waited for his ‘enter!’ command. She’d rehearsed what she was going to say and managed to get out the facts without too much hesitation. Cedric, small and bald behind his big desk, listened with what looked like increasing amazement, and Lily began to falter. He clearly couldn’t believe that Lily had let such blatant pilfering go on under her nose. But when he spoke, that wasn’t the reason at all.

  ‘Daphne Tunnicliffe?’ he exclaimed. ‘But her late husband was in the Chamber of Commerce with me! We served on the Golf Club committee together! Years ago, of course, he’s been dead a long while, but even so … he can’t have left her badly off. I can’t believe it! Some of the pilferers we get here one can understand, but why would a woman in her position do such a thing?’

  Lily was tempted to quote Jim, and Kipling, but instead she said mildly, ‘She lost her daughter, sir, in the Baedeker raids on Bath. There was a small paragraph in the local paper at the time, but perhaps you didn’t see it?’

  Cedric’s face creased.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. ‘How dreadful. I’m so sorry. But how does that justify …?’

  ‘It’s not just the things we’ve lost from Marlows,’ Lily explained. ‘She’s been taking things from other shops over the whole two years since Violet was killed. They’re all gifts for her, you see, and somehow it makes sense to Mrs Tunnicliffe not to pay for them. It’s a sort of secret pact between them.’

  As the words came out, she thought what little sense they made, but, sobered, Cedric Marlow nodded.

  ‘I see now,’ he said. ‘Grief is never rational. That’s the one sure thing about it.’

  Lily looked down. Mr Marlow’s wife had died soon after giving birth to their son.

  They sat in silence for a moment, then Mr Marlow stood up, a sure sign that Lily’s time with him was over. She stood up too.

  ‘Leave this with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with it from here.’ And when Lily looked alarmed, he added, ‘Don’t worry, Miss Collins, I shall be as tactful as you’ve been.’ Seeing Lily’s relief, he went on. ‘I remember now your connection with Mrs Tunnicliffe and her daughter and I quite understand why you acted as you did. Thank you. You may go.’

  Lily scuttled out on jelly legs. She’d done all she could – though she was intrigued by two things. Some of the chat in the staff canteen reckoned Mr Marlow was past it and out of touch, but he clearly remembered from almost three years ago – her very first day – why and how Lily had come into contact with Mrs Tunnicliffe and Violet in the first place; she also wondered what his ‘tactful’ dealing with Mrs Tunnicliffe might entail.

  ‘Are you all right up there, Dora?’

  Gladys, holding the stepladder, watched as Dora strained to reach a cobweb in the corner.

  ‘I’m fine! And if I fell, you’d give me a soft landing!’

  ‘Don’t even talk about it! I’d never forgive myself! It’s so kind of you to help.’

  ‘We can’t have you shinning up steps and bending down to wash skirtings in your condition, can we?’ The cobweb caught in a duster, Dora climbed carefully down. ‘And if Jim’s going to distemper this weekend …’

  ‘The paint smell will go, won’t it, by the time the baby comes?’

  ‘Yes, love, of course it will. You’ve got weeks yet!’

  ‘Five,’ sighed Gladys. ‘I feel like I’ve been pregnant for ever!’

  ‘Baby’ll be here soon enough. And what a lucky little mite to have his or her own nursery!’

  ‘Yeah.’ Gladys smiled. ‘It’s so good of Gran to let me have the box room.’

  Dora pursed her lips. Didn’t help you move any of the stuff that was in here, did she, she thought, but didn’t say it. Gladys wouldn’t hear a word against her gran.

  ‘The thought of you, the size you are, lugging stuff up to the attic!’ she said instead. ‘Why didn’t you ask me or Lily or Jim to help, you silly girl!’

  ‘Oh, well …’ Gladys shrugged. ‘I couldn’t expect Gran to do much. Her lumbago was playing her up.’

  Was it indeed, thought Dora. Funny how Gladys’s gran’s many ailments were always things you couldn’t see or hear. Never a proper wheezy chest, just ‘this terrible tight feeling, like a vice’, never actual sickness, just a ‘sick headache’ or ‘shocking indigestion’. Which came from stuffing her face, in Dora’s view. In fact, the thing wrong with Florrie Jessop was bone idleness – and greed.

  All right, she was in her sixties, but the way she acted you’d have thought she was a hundred. It was a terrible thing to say but the death of her daughter and son-in-law in the Blitz had been a positive blessing for her. Her sweet, obliging granddaughter had come to live with her and Florrie had made her into her personal slave.

  ‘Time you had a sit-down and something to eat,’ Dora told Gladys now. ‘We’ll leave washing down the walls till after.’

  She’d brought round a plate pie for herself and Gladys but if Florrie got to it first there wouldn’t be enough left to fill a hollow tooth. Sure enough, when they went down, Florrie was sitting at the kitchen table with the pie in front of her, pouring the top of the milk on what was obviously her second slice.

  ‘Nice bit of pastry, this,’ she commented, shamelessly taking up her spoon. ‘Did you grow the rhubarb yourself, Dora?’

  ‘Yes, we did,’ Dora replied curtly. ‘But I’m surprised at you touching it. I wouldn’t have thought one helping of rhubarb would agree with you, Florrie, with your delicate digestion, let alone two.’

  ‘I thought I’d risk it, just the once. Vitamins, isn’t it?’

  ‘Have you had yours today, Gladys?’ asked Dora sharply.

  The Government gave expectant mothers vitamins, cod liver oil, orange juice, and extra rations. Dora could well imagine who benefited from that lot while Gladys was out at work. Thanks to Lily’s suggestion, she now had a low stool behind the counter for when there were no customers around, but Dora would much rather Gladys had given up work already.

  She made them each a sandwich and freshened the pot – Florrie had managed to make some tea, at least. Gladys didn’t eat much – ‘No room,’ she explained – and when she went to shake the dusters in the yard, Dora rounded on Florrie.

  ‘I hope that wasn’t Gladys’s top of the milk you were having. And you must see how tired she’s getting.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘I know how much she does for you, the shopping, the cooking, your bits of washing – it’s too much for her. Couldn’t you do a bit more?’

  ‘That’s nice, being attacked in my own home!’ Florrie reddened and defended herself. ‘It’s that shop that’s wearing her out, not me, and it’s her own doing!’

  ‘Nonsense. She’s only staying on for the money, to give the little one the best start in life!’

  Gladys came back in and Dora noticed her puffy ankles.

  ‘We’re only getting in each other’s way in that little room,’ she said. ‘I’ll finish up. You have a rest. Put your feet up and listen to the wireless.’ And she couldn’t resist adding, ‘Take a leaf out of your gran’s book.’

  The look Florrie Jessop gave her would have curdled not just Gladys’s extra pint but every bottle on the milkman’s cart. Dora didn’t care. If Gladys wouldn’t stand up for herself, and Bill wasn’t here to do it for her, well, at least Dora Collins was up to the job.

  Chapter 6

  Cedric had telephoned in advance, so when his taxi drew up on the gravel sweep in front of Daphne Tunnicliffe’s house, he knew he was expected. Telling the driver to wait and climbing the steps to the front door, he too noticed the neglected plants in the doorstep pots. Like the beloved Humber that he’d given up in 1939 – now probably serving as a staff car, if not an ambulance – they were all part of the collateral damage of the war.

  He rang the bell, and Daphne answered almost at once; she must have been watching from a window. He handed her his hat and coat and followed her down the hall to the sitting room. Beyo
nd ‘good evening’ and ‘thank you for coming’ she hadn’t said a word.

  Cedric sat on one of the chintz-covered sofas; she sat stiffly in an armchair like a prisoner about to be interrogated. Cedric had kept his telephone call brief, and now he kicked himself for it. She was clearly expecting a lecture, if not actual punishment. He should have been more reassuring.

  ‘Mrs Tunnicliffe,’ he began. ‘Daphne – if I may?’ She nodded. ‘I don’t want this to be any more awkward than it has to be. I knew your husband slightly, as you may know.’

  Her face showed that she hadn’t. Well, fair enough; they’d met and moved in exclusively male preserves. Cedric didn’t smile easily – he took life too seriously for that – but he tried one now, a kind one, he hoped.

  ‘I know what you did,’ he said, ‘and I know why you did it.’

  She went to say something but he held up his hand to stop her.

  ‘I lost my wife at a young age,’ he said. ‘I know what grief can do to you. It’s a madness of sorts, a temporary madness, one hopes, but no one can tell you that – or predict how long it will last. And it affects everyone in different ways.’

  Mrs Tunnicliffe spoke for the first time.

  ‘You’re very kind, making excuses for me. But it was stealing – from you and from other shops. Stealing!’

  ‘I’m not making excuses,’ Cedric insisted. ‘It’s a fact. Grief sends you to extremes. I threw myself into my work. I see now I was lucky to have it, but it was selfish. I neglected my son, packed him off to boarding school, and didn’t have much to do with him in the holidays either. It was excessive and he suffered – our relationship suffered. I’m not sure it’s ever recovered. Your relationship with your daughter was obviously the opposite – very, very close. And you were trying to preserve it.’

  Daphne Tunnicliffe sighed. She pulled at a loose thread on the arm of her chair.

  ‘Well, thank you for that. But if you’re trying to make me feel better—’