by Joanna Toye
‘Never mind that,’ said Lily. ‘I’ve got you. Lord knows why you put up with me, but you do.’
Jim grinned.
‘Believe it or not, you’re good for me,’ he said. ‘You have ideas, you’ve make me think, you make me laugh. In the end, we complement each other. I think we’re a good team. And we’re going to win through, the two of us, whatever life throws at us.’
‘Or doesn’t,’ countered Lily, thinking about Sergeant Matthews.
‘True. Though right now I could do with it throwing me something to eat!’
‘Trust you, always thinking of your stomach!’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’ countered Jim. ‘We passed a Kardomah on the way here—’
‘Ooh. They might even have decent coffee.’ Now Lily was interested – and the relief at talking about normal, everyday things like food, was overwhelming. ‘And then shall we go and look round the shops? Because now all that ATS nonsense is out of the way—’
‘Oh, it’s nonsense now, is it?’ smiled Jim.
‘Now all that ATS business is out of the way,’ Lily corrected herself, ‘I am properly going to look forward to Christmas. There’s a party for the evacuees at the Drill Hall to organise. And Christmas at Marlows … We must go back to Lewis’s and see their grotto.’ She pulled away so she could look at him. ‘But before we do, have you got your diary with you?’
‘Yes.’ Jim took it from his inside pocket. ‘Why?’
Lily looked at his much-loved face, his high cheekbones, firm chin, his deep-set eyes behind his glasses. She had never loved him so much.
‘Because there’s something much more important than anything else: our wedding. I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through, Jim.’
Jim gave a little shake of his head, but Lily was insistent.
‘I have, I know.’ And then: ‘Oh, I’d get married tomorrow if we could! Wouldn’t you?’
Instead of a reply, Jim swept her into his arms and kissed her. A couple of passing off-duty airmen whooped and wolf-whistled. Lily and Jim didn’t hear them. The moment was purely about them and what they meant to each other, everything they’d been through and everything that lay ahead.
Chapter 22
They couldn’t get married ‘tomorrow’ – they both knew that. But …
‘What are you doing on March 21st next year?’ Lily asked Gladys and Beryl when the three of them got together the next evening for what Beryl called a ‘girls’ night’ at her house. Bill was home again, on a forty-eight-hour pass, so he was babysitting, which meant that Gladys felt confident to leave the twins. Les had been summarily dispatched to the pub so they could have the place to themselves for a ‘good old gossip’ – Beryl’s words again.
‘Next year? How the heck do I know?’ she demanded now. ‘Right, I’ll look in my crystal ball, shall I?’
‘You don’t need it, I’ll tell you,’ said Lily smugly. ‘You’ll be at our wedding, me and Jim’s.’
‘What?’ squeaked Gladys. ‘You never said!’
‘We only decided yesterday, but we’ve set our hearts on it. We said spring, didn’t we, and it’s the first day of spring, so why wait any longer?’
‘I need a drop more of this after that bloomin’ bombshell!’ Beryl lifted the bottle of elderflower wine that her mother-in-law Ivy had sent from the country, where she acted as housekeeper for Jim’s invalid dad. ‘Anyone else for a top-up?’
Gladys shook her head but Lily, still giddy with the ups and downs of the last twenty-four hours, recklessly held out her glass.
‘Go on, tell us more!’ Gladys persisted.
‘There’s not much more to tell yet,’ smiled Lily. ‘But it happens to be a Wednesday and we’ll fix the register office for the afternoon, Beryl, so you won’t lose a morning’s trade—’
‘You are joking?’ Beryl, taking a sip, spluttered wine all over the table. ‘What kind of friend do you take me for? Fix it for whatever time you like. It’s your day, you come first!’
‘Really?’ said Lily. ‘Oh, good because I’d like it as early as possible! Nine o’clock if we can! Less time to get nervous!’
Next day she and Jim got passes out at dinnertime to make the booking. Nine o’clock was perhaps a little early, but there was a slot at 11.15 so they opted for that.
‘Sounds like a dental appointment,’ said Jim as they left, pretending gloom. ‘But at least the dentist is over quickly. I’m getting a life sentence!’
‘Yes, and I’ll make sure you suffer every day,’ Lily teased. ‘Far worse than having a tooth out!’
But with the date, time, and venue fixed, and applying Sid’s dictum again, it was time to tell Dora.
‘We’ve got some news for you, Mum,’ said Lily as they laid the table for tea, Dora doling out the knives and forks as Lily fetched the cruet and Jim brought the water jug and glasses through from the kitchen.
‘Oh yes? Is it Sunday dinner? You said you’d let me know because of setting up the Christmas grotto at work.’
‘It’s not about the grotto.’ Jim wiped the bottom of the jug with his sleeve before setting it down on the cloth. ‘It’s a bit more important than that.’
‘More important than Marlows? Now I’m interested!’
Lily caught her mum around the waist.
‘I should hope you are because you’re going to be mother of the bride! On March 21st next year! We booked it today!’
Dora’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Oh my! You never! Oh, let me sit down!’ Jim quickly pulled out a chair. ‘You don’t half know how to give someone a heart attack! March 21st – well, that settles it, there’ll be no Christmas cake for us this year! I’ll have to save it for the wedding!’
Lily and Jim looked at each other and burst out laughing.
‘Oh Mum, I do love you!’ cried Lily. ‘Straight away, all you can think about is the catering!’
But later, when she and Dora were washing up, there was one thing she wanted to check.
‘You hardly ate anything, Mum,’ she said. ‘You are OK, aren’t you, about the wedding?’
‘Of course I am! Can anyone stomach snoek? Vile stuff, I never did like it.’
Lily nodded. The tinned fish from South Africa was pretty disgusting. Even though Dora rolled it in oatmeal before cooking, it was still horribly oily.
‘So you don’t mind it being a register office do? Only Jim and me, we’re not really churchy people. And I want it to be nice, of course, for all of us, but I don’t want a huge great fuss.’
Dora held up the tines of a fork for inspection before handing it to Lily to dry.
‘And you think I do? I haven’t got over Gladys’s yet!’ Gladys’s big day had turned into a massive production number (‘All it needs is Cecil B. de Mille,’ Sid had joked) which had run them all ragged.
‘As long as you’re sure. You do go to church, after all.’
Dora looked fondly at her daughter – her baby – taking the first real grown-up step of her life.
‘Your wedding, love … on the first day of spring. It’ll be perfect.’
Now the date was set, it didn’t seem that far off, and there was plenty to keep everyone occupied in the meantime.
‘Congratulations!’ said Miss Frobisher warmly when Lily told her. ‘How wonderful to have something to look forward to through the winter!’
‘It is.’ But remembering how dizzy Miss Frobisher had been in the weeks before her wedding, she added: ‘But I shan’t be slacking off here, Miss Frobisher, don’t worry. Jim and I will be in on Sunday to set up the grotto – Father Christmas arrives on Monday, after all!’
And so he did, waving and beaming from on his milkman’s cart-cum-sleigh for the Chronicle’s photographer. After making his way through the store, he was installed on his padded throne in the grotto, attended by his elves. Freed from their usual boring tasks, the juniors made the most of their liberation, capering mischievously around to entertain the queue of harassed mothers and over-excited c
hildren.
That wasn’t the only pre-Christmas excitement: planning for the Christmas party for the evacuee children was also underway. Instead of tacking scraps of khaki rag onto camouflage nets at the next WVS meeting, Lily was put to making paper chains and Chinese lanterns out of old newspapers. The invitations had gone out and the replies received; among them, Mrs Tunnicliffe had confirmed she’d be bringing Joe and Barbara along. The children’s parents had also been invited.
‘Though who knows if any of them will turn up,’ Mrs Russell reflected, as she dabbed watery paint on one of Lily’s completed paper chains. ‘There’s the cost of the fare, for a start, when most of them haven’t two farthings to rub together. And with these wicked bombs still falling almost every day …’
Lily said nothing. It was the point she’d made to Sergeant Matthews, but she’d moved beyond that now and so had events. Within days of the trip to the recruiting office, the big announcement that Sergeant Matthews had hinted at had come.
At Brook Street, they’d been gathered round the wireless for the nine o’clock news as usual, Dora knitting, Jim and Lily playing rummy. First the chimes of Big Ben, then the gurgle and gasp of the set, and then:
‘This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news—’
‘And this is Alvar Liddell reading it,’ chanted Lily and Jim in unison, recognising the familiar tones of the BBC’s chief announcer.
He’d been the one to break the news of the long-awaited victory at El Alamein and the country had taken him to their hearts when the professional mask had slipped for once and he’d come out with: ‘Here is the news and cracking good news it is too!’
The news he delivered that December evening was almost as stunning.
‘It has been announced from Downing Street that the Home Guard is being stood down. The threat of invasion is now thought to be so remote that their services are no longer required. In a statement, the Prime Minister thanked most profoundly the one and a half million men who have served the country so diligently …’
Lily stopped listening. She turned to Jim and mouthed, ‘Sergeant Matthews.’
He nodded and mouthed back, ‘Stand by for the liberation of Holland.’
But first, there was the evacuees’ Christmas party.
‘Stand by for mayhem,’ said Jim as they put up the trestle tables for the tea at one end of the Drill Hall, leaving the other end free for the party games. ‘Mayhem at best. Or perhaps they’ll simply kill each other.’
Lily had dragged him along to help. There were various long-suffering WVS husbands there too, including Dr Russell, who was practising having a pillow stuffed up his jumper. He’d agreed to masquerade as Father Christmas, whose arrival was to be the finale.
‘That’s why you’re here, to keep them occupied.’ Lily sucked her finger where she’d pinched it unfolding the leg of a trestle. ‘Grandmother’s Footsteps, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Flap the Kipper …’
‘I don’t know why you think they’ll take any notice of me.’ Jim motioned to her to stand back as he upended the trestle onto its legs. ‘You never do!’
‘Can I start laying up?’ Dora approached from the kitchen where she’d been cutting a pile of sandwiches. Thanks to a special allocation of sugar, there’d also be cakes and jelly served with – thanks to Sam, who’d heard about the party from Dora – something called fruit cocktail. He’d sent a parcel containing six tins.
Time sped by. Suddenly it was three o’clock and the children started to arrive with their foster mothers, most of whom made a sharp exit, grateful for a couple of hours to themselves to get on with their own Christmas preparations. But there was only one foster family Lily was looking out for, and that was Mrs Tunnicliffe, with Joe and Barbara.
Jim saw them first, out in the little hallway, Mrs Tunnicliffe helping Barbara to take off her coat and hang it up, then taking off her own coat and hat. Joe held out his hands and hung them up for her. Not only was she looking after them, it seemed she was teaching them manners.
As they came into the hall, looking around, Lily moved forward and Mrs Tunnicliffe smiled. Her hair was newly set and she had a festive sprig of holly on the lapel of her raspberry tweed suit.
‘Lily! I hoped you’d be here!’
Joe gave Lily a knowing look and a fleeting grin. Barbara, her blonde hair in two tidy plaits, smiled shyly.
‘You’ve lost a couple of teeth!’ said Lily, and Joe winked.
‘And the Tooth Fairy gave her a whole sixpence for each one, didn’t she, Barb?’
His sister nodded and pointed across the room.
‘Ah, that’s Edie, her best friend from school,’ said Mrs Tunnicliffe. ‘Off you go then, dear, and say hello. You too, Joe, I can see your pals over there. No getting into mischief, mind.’
Barbara ran off and Joe joined a threesome who were shaking the wrapped package for Pass the Parcel to try to establish its contents.
‘You seem to have them well under control.’ Jim was impressed. ‘I might need some tips from you later!’
‘That’s very kind,’ Mrs Tunnicliffe replied. ‘I think if children have a set routine and know the rules, they feel secure. Then they don’t really have much reason to misbehave.’ Mrs Tunnicliffe looked fondly across at the children and Lily marvelled at the change in her. Her whole bearing was altered: she was more sure of herself again, secure in a new purpose in life. ‘It took a while for them to settle down after so much disruption,’ she went on, ‘but I’m able to give them a lot of time, which helps of course.’
‘And they’re thriving on it,’ said Lily. ‘But you’re not finding it too tiring, looking after them all on your own?’ she added ingenuously.
She couldn’t quite see Cedric Marlow volunteering for Blind Man’s Buff or marching the animals two by two into the Noah’s Ark, but she could hardly ask outright if Mrs Tunnicliffe ever had anyone around to share the load, or even to talk to about the responsibility she’d taken on.
‘It’s been a lifeline for me,’ said Mrs Tunnicliffe warmly. ‘I’m so glad you called that day. I can’t remember now how the subject came up, but the idea that some of the children had been split up … it preyed on my mind. If that had been Violet and her brothers, well …’
‘Lily said the same thing about her brothers.’ Jim put his arm round her and Lily glanced up at him. After the way he’d ticked her off for wanting to get involved, it was tacit approval of the way she’d handled things after all. ‘Joe and Barbara really struck a chord with her. We’re just happy they’ve found a good home with you.’
‘They’re delightful children,’ said Mrs Tunnicliffe warmly. ‘Their mother’s done a very good job in such difficult times. I’m simply carrying on the good work. Oh – but I must congratulate you! You’re engaged, I gather, and getting married in the spring.’
‘That’s right!’ said Lily. ‘Thank you, we’re very happy.’
‘So you should be! Now, I should go and keep an eye on my charges.’
Mrs Tunnicliffe moved away, but Lily had her answer.
‘Well, that proves it!’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘She might have spotted my ring, but she couldn’t possibly know when we were getting married unless your uncle had told her. We haven’t seen her since before we got engaged. And we’ve only just settled the date and told everyone at work so he’s definitely seen her recently! Never mind us, you don’t think there could be another wedding in the offing, do you?’
By four o’clock, the party was in full swing. The children were playing Pass the Parcel, which Jim had planned as a quiet game to calm them down before tea – some hope! To the frantic accompaniment of ‘Jingle Bells’ thumped out at double speed on the hall’s tinny piano, it had turned into a dogfight as the children clutched the parcel to their chests while their neighbour tried to wrench it from them. Jim tried helplessly to police it as Lily helped carry plates of food and jugs of lemon squash to the tables. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a nervous-looking woman in a headscarf peer th
rough the glass panes of the double doors. Skirting the shrieking rabble, she went out into the hallway.
‘Can I help you?’
The woman looked at her. When she spoke, her voice was high and breathy and the words tumbled out, almost bumping into one other.
‘It’s taken me forever to get here, but I did want to come. I’m Mrs Wilson. Mavis – Joe and Barbara’s mother. I had a letter saying this was on. I’ve come to see them, and brought them a few bits for Christmas.’ She put a lumpy string bag down on the floor.
Lily held out her hands. The woman’s coat was only thin; she was thin too, her eyes huge in a pale face.
‘I’m so glad you came! But you look frozen, come in and have a cup of tea – they’ll be so thrilled to see you.’
‘Oh, I’m not coming in!’ Mrs Wilson said quickly. ‘They’re my life, those kids, but they’ve settled here now. If they see me it’ll only upset them, and then I’d get upset and that’d upset them even more when I had to go and I don’t want that.’
‘Really? But you’ve come all this way—’
Mavis Wilson shook her head.
‘I just wanted to see them,’ she said. ‘From a distance. That’s enough. I’ve spotted Joe already; he’s grown even in these few months. And filled out a bit!’
Lily glanced back through the smeared panes. Joe was taller and looked healthier, certainly.
‘And have you seen Barbara? She’s not playing the game, she’s there, by the tea table. Red velvet dress.’
‘Oh my! Look at her! Where’d she get that frock?’
Lily suspected Mrs Tunnicliffe had had her dressmaker run it up with material she already had. It was how a lot of the wealthier women managed to dress themselves and their children – they didn’t have to rely on coupons. But Mrs Wilson answered her own question.
‘The woman that’s looking after them, I suppose she had it made. And where’s she?’
Lily pointed out Mrs Tunnicliffe, who was making space on one of the tables for a plate of cakes.
‘She’s older than I thought.’ Lily was relieved there was no edge to Mavis Wilson’s voice. She had every right to be jealous and even resentful of Mrs Tunnicliffe, who had care of her children while she didn’t, but she seemed nothing but grateful. She turned to Lily. ‘She has them write to me every week – well, Joe does. Barb sends a little picture sometimes, bless her, though she can write her name now real good. But that Mrs Tunnicliffe, she writes too, tells me properly how they are, what they’ve done, and she is good to them. There was a nasty cold going round, and she had the doctor out for Barb thinking it might go to her chest, so they caught it in time—’ She stopped abruptly. ‘I’m talking too much – my husband always said I did.’