A Christmas Promise

by Annie Groves

  ‘Are you sure, Archie?’ Olive felt as if she had betrayed him in some way; as if she was turning him away in favour of her daughter, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  ‘You get some rest, Olive, you have a busy day tomorrow.’ His voice was intimate, tender, and as he reached into the dark hallway, he momentarily caught a stray curl of her loosened hair and gently held it in his fingers. Then, letting it go, he caught hold of the door and as he drew it towards him.

  ‘I will, Archie … And you …’ Olive said.

  ‘Good night, Olive …’ Archie said as he closed the front door. ‘Don’t forget the bolt.’

  ‘I won’t, Archie …’ Olive said in a low whisper. ‘Good night …’ She knew there would be comments from the girls when she went back inside but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind at all.

  ‘Oh, Mum, it’s beautiful! I love it,’ Tilly said as she opened the leather box the next morning, and as her fingers delicately lifted the sapphire pendant, Olive breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘I thought it was just perfect for you.’ Olive recognised delight in her daughter’s eyes now. But it hadn’t been so earlier. Then, there was no mistaking the hooded disappointment when Tilly went to collect her birthday cards from the hall table, quickly scouring the envelopes for the familiar scrawl that belonged only to Drew. Her daughter’s low frustrated groan did not go unnoticed as Olive carried their morning tea into the front room, and, for the millionth time, Olive was on the verge of telling Tilly that Drew hadn’t deserted her when he went back to America. But she couldn’t. She just could not bring herself to say the words.

  ‘I will wear it always,’ Tilly said, gazing at her reflection in the mirror above the three-legged table in the hall as she held the pendant to her neck.

  ‘I thought it matched the colour of your eyes,’ Olive smiled, glad she was able to make Tilly happy again.

  Then, Tilly turned to her and said, ‘If that was the case you should see them after being on duty all night – you would have bought me a ruby pendant then.’ The other girls were in the front room now and they joined in the laughter around the breakfast table. ‘And after all the talking that Agnes and I did last night … ’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind losing some sleep.’ Agnes patted Tilly’s hand. ‘We had a real old catch-up and it was lovely.’

  ‘It certainly was,’ said Tilly, knowing Agnes, the quietest of the Article Row clan, was coming out of her shell now. She had been through enough in her life and Tilly knew Agnes was going to tell her mum that she was moving on to the farm in a couple of days. Thank goodness she wouldn’t be here, Tilly thought, eating her lightly buttered toast and knowing neither of them could stand ‘goodbyes’.

  ‘Take off your dog tags. It might get tangled …’ Sally said in her down-to-earth way.

  ‘I can’t take them off,’ Tilly said, and silently thought, or Drew’s ring, as her hand automatically sought the gold Harvard ring, which had substituted the engagement ring Drew had promised to buy her on his return to England. Momentarily her joy was replaced with a dark cloud of anguish for the love she was destined never to enjoy.

  ‘Mum, will you put it on for me?’ Tilly compelled herself to suppress the deep feelings of loss that were never too far away. She must put on a happy face today for her mother’s sake.

  ‘Oh, darling, it suits you so well – it’s as if it had been made just for you,’ Olive cried, still surprised that Audrey took only a pound for the pendant; she would have paid far more if she’d bought it in town, she was sure. ‘Now let me look at you properly.’ Olive took Tilly’s hands and then said, with a small shake of her head, ‘You’ve lost weight. You need some good home cooking inside you!’

  ‘Mum, that is your answer to all ills,’ Tilly laughed. Her mum loved nothing more than to feed people up, or give them hot tea and conversation at least, due to rationing. She also knew that one thing she had not been short of in the ATS was good food.

  EIGHT

  ‘You won’t let on to Mum, will you, Agnes?’ Tilly’s face was full of concern later. ‘She’ll only worry herself sick.’ Tilly had confided in Agnes that she had volunteered to be sent anywhere, here or abroad.

  ‘No, of course I won’t,’ Agnes said truthfully. ‘I feel very fortunate to be privy to your news.’ However, Agnes, too, felt more than a little apprehension, and half wished that Tilly hadn’t confided in her, but she realised her friend must have badly needed to tell someone. ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’

  ‘No, Agnes, I’m going to put my head in front of the first machine gun I come across!’ Tilly laughed. Then, sobering, she whispered, ‘Of course I’ll be careful – you nit!’ Even though she was thrilled and excited about where she would be sent the day after tomorrow she still felt the shiver of apprehension run through her. She would miss her mum more than she had ever done, but if she didn’t do what was in her heart she would never forgive herself and she liked making her own decisions, be they good or bad. The time had come when she would stand or fall by her own choices. Today she felt that more keenly than ever.

  ‘But let’s not get morbid, Agnes, not today.’ Tilly said with false brightness. Time enough for all that another day. It was the early afternoon of her twenty-first birthday … The day she promised to marry Drew Coleman.

  ‘Of course,’ Agnes said just as brightly, ‘let’s enjoy the day.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Tilly said, knowing she could not put a damper on the day, for her mum’s sake, ‘we’re just going to enjoy my leave – even if it is only for another twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Your mum will be your constant shadow.’ Both girls laughed.

  Then, changing the subject altogether, Agnes said, ‘I hope there won’t be an air raid tonight.’

  ‘Even if there is,’ Tilly said, knowing they couldn’t go outside to the Anderson shelter – which Barney had transformed into a superior residence for the precious chickens since she had left for the Forces – ‘Archie’s made the cellar all whitewashed and comfy.’ She said it without any hint of acrimony, knowing her mum was being well looked after.

  ‘Archie’s here more than in his own house. He and your mum like to keep each other company.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you do when you get to such an old age.’

  ‘Hey,’ Olive called from the kitchen, where she was busily making sandwiches, ‘I heard that, you saucy madam!’ Tilly and Agnes doubled over laughing in that carefree way they used to do before the war took all the fun out of life.

  Tilly and Agnes went to help Olive and Audrey in the kitchen. The house would soon be full, as the guests were all arriving now.

  Later that afternoon, when Tilly’s guests were singing in the front room, enjoying themselves as the celebratory drinks flowed, thanks to everybody’s contributions, Archie took his chance and followed Olive into the kitchen; she looked so beautiful with her flushed cheeks and wisps of hair escaping from the grips that usually kept her immaculate curls in place. And he found it hard to resist putting his arms around her waist and pulling her to him.

  ‘You don’t look old enough to have a twenty-one-year-old daughter, Olive,’ he said, taking in her trim figure and laughing eyes, thinking that when she was happy, as she was today, they outshone her daughter’s. He realised that he had fallen in love with Olive in a way he had never loved any other woman before – not even his first wife.

  The love he felt for Olive was all-consuming; every beat of his heart belonged to her. He felt downhearted when he wasn’t with her, she filled his day with colour when everything was bleak, and above all she gave him hope for the future … their future. But he knew he couldn’t voice his inner feelings as Tilly came into the kitchen.

  ‘That’s a pretty necklace, Tilly,’ Archie said, smiling and giving nothing of his feelings away. But something was niggling at him now. If he wasn’t mistaken he had seen something similar somewhere before.

  ‘I got it from Mum, Archie,’ Tilly smiled as her fingers gently care
ssed the sapphire pendant. ‘It’s the most perfect present and much more valuable than I deserve,’ she smiled before going back to her guests, taking a replenished plate of sandwiches with her.

  ‘Hello, Olive,’ cried Dulcie in the inimitable cockney drawl that even the best elocution lessons in the country could not fully erase. ‘How are you feeling with a grown-up daughter?’ She sailed into the kitchen on a waft of Chanel No.5, looking as glamorous as ever in a crepe, square-shouldered coat, which almost took Olive’s breath away. The nipped-in waist and deep-cuffed sleeves made her former lodger look like a film star.

  ‘Dulcie, you look gorgeous!’ Olive could not keep the yearning to look so good from her voice.

  ‘You know me, Olive,’ Dulcie said in the confident style that Olive knew was only for show, ‘I couldn’t care less if it is patriotic to look shabby!’ She threw her head back and laughed, saying, ‘Having looked patriotic all my life it’s time to tidy myself up a bit.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it.’ Olive laughed, and Archie quietly agreed that they had never seen Dulcie looking shabby.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, though, Olive, you’ve surpassed yourself with that pendant, and no mistake.’ Then, in a lower tone, she half-whispered out of Tilly’s earshot, but not out of Archie’s, ‘Here, I bet that set you back a few bob – I can tell it’s the really thing.’ Olive beamed with pride. If Dulcie thought it was genuine then Tilly would, too, and for a pound it wasn’t a bad find in the charity shop.

  ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies, Dulcie – you know what I mean?’ Olive gave Dulcie a meaningful look and smiled, knowing she would guess that she had bought the pendant in a charity shop. It did look very expensive, and the leather box that Audrey had found added to the illusion of an expensive gift bought in a bona-fide jeweller’s, but, if the truth got out, Olive thought she would never live down the humiliation.

  ‘Oh, you are a one!’ Dulcie, who was not averse to buying luxury goods on the black market, tapped her nose. ‘Say no more, Olive, say no more.’

  ‘Dulcie! I didn’t mean …’ But before she could tell her former lodger that she hadn’t bought the pendant from a spiv, Dulcie was out of the door.

  ‘Archie?’ Olive felt foolish for not making Dulcie aware that the pendant wasn’t ‘hooky’, as Dulcie herself would say, but it was too late, and Archie, too, had left the kitchen.

  ‘Is there a problem, Olive?’ Audrey Windle asked as she brought out some empty plates.

  ‘I didn’t want anybody to know I bought the pendant from the Red Cross shop, but Archie might have got the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘Oh, dear, is that a problem? Can’t you just tell him?’ Audrey asked in her calm, reassuring way.

  Olive took a deep breath to calm her nerves. ‘I don’t want him thinking I’m a cheapskate,’ she said, sure that Archie had been going to kiss her before the kitchen turned into somewhere as busy as King’s Cross station! He had been so close she could smell the clean manliness of him that had sent shivers of delight right through her. ‘I don’t want it to become common knowledge that I bought my only daughter’s twenty-first birthday present in a Red Cross charity shop!’ Olive said, annoyed with herself for not speaking to Archie sooner.

  ‘I’m sure Archie would never think such a thing of you, Olive,’ Audrey said, patting her arm. ‘He holds you in such high regard, everybody knows that.’

  Do they? Olive thought, as a flurry of delightful anticipation sparkled inside her. Audrey was right: Archie wouldn’t think any less of her for buying Tilly’s present in the charity shop. She would explain it all to him later; he would understand completely.

  She picked up another plate of salmon paste sandwiches and went out to play her role as the perfect hostess.

  ‘Oh, here he is, my lovely brother!’ Dulcie called to Rick, who had just came into the front room pulling beer bottles from every pocket. Rick beamed a sunny smile to his sister.

  ‘All right, Dulce, me old china!’ Rick called as he took Tilly in his arms. ‘Catch up with you later, Sis, I’ve just got to give our Tilly her birthday present first.’ He said it in such a way that the whole room, Tilly’s ATS friends, who had got leave, included, all gave a rousing cheer, and Tilly could feel her face flame. She wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or indignation. Rick was a lovely man but he could be a bit base sometimes, she thought, and she didn’t want him joking suggestively in front of Nancy and the vicar.

  ‘Here, you gonna give us a twirl when we throw the rug back later, Nance?’ Rick said with his usual East End joie de vivre. ‘Kick yer shoes off, gel, trip the light fandango …’

  ‘Well, I never,’ Nancy huffed as she sat near the fireplace, clutching her third small glass of sweet sherry.

  ‘Bless your cotton socks, Nance,’ Rick called in high spirits, making Tilly cringe, ‘you’ll miss a treat there, gel.’

  ‘Rick!’ Tilly loudly whispered from the door where she had been standing since he came in and took centre stage – there was no party worth its salt if it didn’t have Rick Simmonds in it. Dulcie used to be just as bad, thought Tilly, embarrassed, but at least Dulcie had calmed down now she was a mother.

  ‘Right, Nance,’ said Rick, while Tilly wondered if he was deliberately taking the mick out of Nancy, whose pomposity needed to be punctured now and again – but not here, not today. ‘Now you wait there for me, Nance, and I’ll just tell my girl that we’re just good friends, you and me, awright?’ Rick gave Nancy his most charming smile and Nancy actually nodded.

  ‘Rick!’ Tilly wished the floor would open up and swallow him. ‘Come here. Right now!’ She could tell he’d had a few scoops, as he called an afternoon pint in his local, because even though he could bring a corpse to life with his banter, she didn’t want the more salubrious front-room guests to think she was …

  Think she was what? Suddenly, Tilly wondered when she had become such a snob. She used to love to sing and dance around the piano with the girls, and loved nothing more than when somebody, herself included, gently ribbed Nancy into submission. Tilly knew she should relax a little. It was obvious everybody was enjoying themselves – even Nancy was laughing now.

  ‘You should have brought your daughter and grandchildren in, Nancy,’ Olive said, as she replenished the table with filled plates.

  ‘She doesn’t mix very well,’ Nancy replied, looking vaguely embarrassed.

  ‘Barney and your grandson got on like a house on fire that day when Tilly was going into the ATS,’ Olive said blithely, passing around a plate of fruitcake.

  ‘If you remember rightly, Olive,’ Nancy said, her words slurring slightly from the sherry she had consumed, ‘your Barney left my Freddy down the underground and we were out on horseback looking for him until gone midnight …’

  ‘Not on horseback, Nancy,’ Olive replied, knowing her neighbour had always been prone to exaggeration, ‘and I wouldn’t say eight o’clock was gone midnight either.’ ‘I’ll just put these upstairs, Mum,’ Tilly said, her arms full of birthday presents. Considering it was war time and everything was in such short supply, she had not expected to be so generously showered with gifts.

  ‘OK, darling, I’ll keep my eye on his nibs over there.’

  Olive smiled when she saw Rick trying to teach Audrey Windle how to jitterbug like the Americans, but Audrey was favouring the old ‘step … two … three’ of the waltz, and Olive thought it was comical to watch. She was having such a good time and her daughter’s birthday had turned out just perfect.

  NINE

  ‘I have to go now, Olive. I’m back at the station at six …’

  ‘All right, Archie, I’ll see you later then.’ There was a definite twinkle in Olive’s eye that Archie put down to the sherry.

  ‘We’ll see, Olive,’ he said politely, and after bidding everyone farewell he closed the front door quietly behind him. He would love to stay but he couldn’t when he had such a burden to carry around. He needed time to think. How could he have misunder
stood Olive so badly? He would have staked his life and his reputation as a fair man who could usually ‘read’ people so well that Olive would have been the last person to accept black market goods. He was shocked that not only was she comfortable accepting them, but had laughed about it with Dulcie and treated the whole sordid episode as a joke!

  No, he couldn’t stay here much longer. If he did he would be in danger of saying something he might later regret.

  ‘What’s wrong with Archie?’ Sally asked as she came in from the hospital after seeing Callum. ‘He doesn’t look his usual jolly self.’

  ‘He’s got work to do,’ Olive said, nonplussed. ‘How’s Callum?’ She was surprised to see Sally’s usually calm, professional façade crumble.

  ‘Oh, Olive, the next few days will be critical; he’s in such a bad way.’ Sally allowed Olive to lead her out to the sanctuary of the kitchen and she closed the door so they wouldn’t be disturbed. Olive realised that Sally might be fonder of Callum than she had ever let on, which seemed to be the case when Sally took a deep breath and said in a rush, ‘I have to be with him, Olive. He needs someone with him at all times and after … after we had been such good friends … I wondered … Can you look after Alice for me?’

  ‘Of course I will. That goes without saying, Sally. You take all the time you need.’

  ‘I’ll pop back every chance I get!’

  ‘Don’t you worry about a thing, Sally.’ Olive’s demeanour changed immediately: gone was the frivolous party-girl and in her place was the sensible head of the household. ‘You leave Alice with us, she’ll be fine … And you don’t have to pop back, we won’t let her come to any harm.’

  ‘Oh, Olive, I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ Sally cried as she hugged her landlady, who had been the only mother she had known for all of the war years.