A Christmas Promise

by Annie Groves

  ‘Oh, do shut up!’ Tilly said aloud. However, the relentless ringing finally told her there was nobody in the office to answer it and as the noise got the better of her nerves, she scraped back her chair and impatiently marched to the journo room through the adjoining door.

  Tilly threw back the door with such force it banged against the adjoining wall and she snatched up the phone in a none-too-patient manner.

  Her voice was terse when she said through gritted teeth, ‘Extension 647!’ It was the number of the journalists’ telephone and as she waited for a reply she was already formulating a memo of complaint to the switchboard operator who had allowed the call through when she had been told distinctly that Tilly was not to be disturbed. Tapping her short, neatly manicured nails impatiently on the desk she listened as the call was put through.

  Then stopping mid-tap she heard the male American voice on the other end of the line and recognised it immediately! Usually, any American accent would send her heart racing and causing her memories to flood back to happier times, but this was one she would forever recognise even among a million others.

  ‘Hi, is Brad there? Tell him it’s Drew.’

  Suddenly, his voice awakened the longing that was never far from Tilly’s heart and she knew for sure that the wound of eternal love for the most wonderful man in her life had never healed; it had never even begun to heal.

  Gripping the telephone so tightly her fingernails embedded into the palm of her hand, she only just managed to suppress her incredulous gasp of shock with the fingers of her other hand. Surely, it couldn’t be?

  What should she do? Should she just hang up? No, he would only ring back again thinking he had been cut off. Breathe!

  Her heart was hammering in her chest now and she had to drag a straight-backed chair to the desk and sit down. Tilly couldn’t think; her brain had frozen. All those questions she had rehearsed since Drew had gone back to America dissolved into nothing; all those answers she was looking for disappeared …

  ‘Hello? Is anybody there? Hello.’

  Those few short words, spoken over the crackling line in a small office tucked away in the centre of Whitehall, were all it took to connect Tilly Robbins and Drew Coleman together after being apart for so very, very long and suddenly … for what reason she didn’t know … she couldn’t bring herself to speak to Drew Coleman.

  ‘I’m afraid there is nobody of that name here, caller.’

  Tilly’s voice was professionally efficient. She had grown accustomed to his absence, she may even have got used to not having him around. A lot had changed since he’d been gone. She had changed. And although she hadn’t lost Drew because he had died and experienced the loss of him, like Sally and Agnes had grieved for George and Ted, her heartache was different. Because her sweetheart was still alive, breathing the same air, looking up at the same sky, hearing the same news, and he could walk right back into her life any moment. And that was what she had grieved for: the lost months of uncertainty, the longing, the hoping and praying he would be just around the corner. That she would bump into him at any moment … but now she had got over all that, she told herself. She had a new life. One that didn’t include Drew Coleman. And no matter how much her heart wanted to scream and cry and beg him to come back, her head told her she would never be able to trust him again. She had no intentions of crying herself to sleep every night and wandering around in a daze of barely living, praying he would come back to her again …

  ‘Hello, ma’am?

  Biting her bottom lip, Tilly knew she should just hang up. Obviously, Drew had not recognised her voice. It would be so easy to cut all ties in the same way he had so callously severed their once-beautiful relationship. Her stomach was doing somersaults now and the room had grown uncomfortably hot. As Tilly took the telephone from her ear to hang up she heard Drew’s anxious, almost reedy voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘Hello?’ There was an impatient tapping noise followed by another. ‘Hello?’

  It was no use, Tilly could not cut him off the way he had done to her. Despite her resolution, hearing his voice had awakened in her all of those feelings of love and longing that she had been trying so hard to suppress. It was an almighty effort even to speak.

  ‘I’m afraid the person you wish to speak to is unavailable, caller.’ Tilly’s voice came out as a croak through her dry throat and lips. Obviously, with her short, curt answers he did not recognise her voice. From the few short words he had spoken, Drew sounded upbeat, making Tilly feel even more aloof. There was a fine line between passion and hate, Tilly believed, and she had loved him with such passion it overwhelmed her. She had lived him, breathed him, thrived on every compliment, withered on every moment he wasn’t with her. It was a full day’s work loving Drew Coleman and she didn’t know if she could spare the time now, like he couldn’t spare the time to tell her it was over even when he had declared … It would be easier if she cut him out of her life – easier to feel the exquisite agony of denial and live with it for ever. She didn’t have the strength to lose him all over again.

  ‘Please ring back tomorrow, caller.’ Tilly’s tone was professional, unemotional. There was a silence on the other end of the line and after a short while she too began to wonder if they had been cut off. Just as she was about to replace the black Bakelite receiver onto the cradle Drew’s voice came back … a little hesitant at first.

  ‘You know …’ he sounded so hesitatingly intimate she could imagine his handsome expression, ‘you sound an awful lot like a girl I used to—’

  A girl you used to know – is that all I am to you? her silent thoughts screamed inside her head.

  ‘Maybe all English girls sound the same, sir.’ Tilly knew her answer sounded coldly brusque, but she could not allow her will to falter. However, her short reply did not have the desired effect when she heard Drew’s excited response.

  ‘Tilly! Tilly, is that you? It is you, isn’t it?’ He sounded like an excited ten-year-old at a birthday party, and Tilly, despite her efforts to let her emotions get to her, felt hot tears running down her cheeks. He remembered her! Drew actually remembered her – and, fleetingly, she felt pathetically grateful.

  ‘Hello, Drew.’ Her voice was low and cracked. Then she was silent, frantically gathering her thoughts, unable to speak for the tightening in her throat, her eyes so blurred with tears that she couldn’t even make out the numbers on the dial of the telephone. ‘How are you?’ It was such a mundane question, an enquiry anybody in the street would make; old friends who weren’t close and who were just asking out of politeness … not a man asking the question of his girl, who had worn the ring he gave her next to her heart since the day he vowed to marry her …

  ‘I’m fine, and you?’ Tilly pressed her fist to her lips to prevent the sob escaping when Drew’s voice came rushing down the line.

  ‘Gee, I’m swell, honey—’ He stopped abruptly.

  He called her ‘honey’ – like he used to – like there had been no separation, no absent letters … And then he was speaking again

  ‘Never mind about me, how are you?’ Drew’s voice sounded happy, too happy, almost like he used to sound when he was hiding something …

  ‘I’m good,’ Tilly said. ‘I’ve been going out with Rick Simmonds, you remember Rick?’ Tilly knew that telling him about Rick was cruel and childish, but she was unable to stop herself. She wanted to hurt Drew now, make him jealous, make him see that she had got over him and she wasn’t pining on a shelf.

  ‘Dulcie’s brother, yeah, I remember …’ There was a silent pause and then for a short while a heavy silence hung between them. When Drew finally did speak he sounded as if he was choosing his words carefully. ‘He’s a great guy … one of the best …’

  Tilly wanted to scream at him, to ask him how he could have left her after all of the promises that they had made to each other, after all of the dark times they had been through together: the Blitz, the time he was nearly killed in a raid, that unforgettable
night when they had made their solemn vow to each other … But she didn’t. Her pride wouldn’t let her.

  ‘How’s your mom? Good, I hope,’

  ‘Yes, she’s good,’ Tilly answered automatically, feeling the rigid pressure between them grow. She could hardly believe that here they were, exchanging pleasantries, almost like strangers. Tilly tried to keep her tone nonchalant but her stomach was in knots.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ Tilly managed to say, her voice trembling as she longed to ask why he had run out on her and never got in touch.

  ‘I know, sweetheart, far too long …’ Drew sounded full of regret, and a fizz of pent-up emotion shot through Tilly.

  She wanted to ask a thousand questions, she wanted to tell him how she had suffered, how her life had changed so much because of him. She wanted to tell him that she was going away to a place where she might get killed – she wanted to make him feel as bad as he had made her feel. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She could never hurt him the way he had hurt her.

  ‘I’ll be in London next week, honey – can you meet me?’

  ‘No, Drew, I’m sorry.’ Tilly’s wasn’t sure where she found the strength to get the next words out, but she did, ‘I’ll be moving on next week and I won’t be in London, that’s for sure. It was nice to hear from you, Drew, but I really have to go now. And anyway, any spare time I have is spent with Rick.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He sounded crushed. ‘Tilly, listen, there’s something—’

  ‘Let’s just remain good friends, hey, Drew?’ Tilly’s heart was breaking as the words left her lips but she knew that if she let her guard down now, even a little, it would be too late and she’d never have the strength to do it again. Letting him believe that there was something solid between her and Rick even though there really wasn’t – she and Rick both knew that – was the best thing in the long run. But she couldn’t let Drew back into her life now. If she did there was no saying where it would lead, and someone would get hurt – and that someone, Tilly suspected, would be her. ‘I will leave a message for Brad. Goodbye, Drew.’ Tilly put down the handset, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t wait for Drew to say goodbye – not again.

  ‘Looks like you’re off, too,’ Rick said to Tilly as they stood in the middle of the parade ground, their kitbags at their feet. Tilly felt a tinge of sadness that Rick was being shipped out to Italy to join his regiment, but there was no mistaking the look of eager anticipation in his eyes.

  ‘I’m not sure where we’re going, though,’ Tilly answered. She didn’t tell him that she had spoken to Drew the night before, just as she didn’t tell Drew she was being shipped abroad.

  ‘I can’t wait to get back with the boys, in the thick of it once more,’ Rick laughed, but Tilly could tell he was nervous and presumed he would be until he got back with his comrades.

  ‘Tilly … You know I said …?’ Rick, for once, was having trouble saying what he thought but Tilly knew exactly what was on his mind. They had met up and gone dancing and been to the pictures together, but Tilly felt more like Rick was her brother than anything else. The passion that she and Drew had fought just wasn’t there in the same way. Speaking to Drew last night had made Tilly realise that it wasn’t fair of her to keep Rick hanging on. It was better to let him go and find someone else to love him like he deserved to be loved. With his natural good looks and charm, Tilly doubted he would be without a girl for long.

  ‘Rick, before you go off, there is something I want to say to you,’ Tilly took a deep breath and looked Rick straight in the eye. ‘You’ve been the best fun in the world and I’ve had a wonderful time being with you, but—‘

  Rick out his finger to her lips and stopped her, ‘Hey, now, Till – no need to say any more. You’re a great girl and we’ll always be friends, won’t we?’

  Tilly nodded and lowered her eyes, lest he see the sadness there.

  ‘Someone else got the best of your love, Tilly,’ Rick continued. ‘And I hope the daft beggar realises that you’re the best thing that ever happened to him – before it’s too late. I’ll always have a soft spot for you. Maybe if things were different—’

  Tilly was finding it hard to hold back the tears threatening to overwhelm her.

  ‘I knew that this day was coming, but you’ll always mean the world to me, Tilly.’ He, gently lifted her chin to meet her eyes and as he looked at her now, Tilly could see he meant every word.

  ‘Oh, Rick. This horrible war has got a lot to answer for!’ Tilly attempted a smile, but her eyes filled with tears as he drew her close and embraced her.

  ‘Goodbye, Rick. Keep safe, won’t you? I’ll be thinking of you.’

  ‘And I’ll be thinking of you, Till,’ whispered Rick. ‘I’ll be thinking of you …’

  ‘Where d’you think we’re going?’ Janet asked excitedly as the four of them were jostled like a pea in a whistle in the back of an army truck, holding on to anything immovable. The girls were excited and apprehensive at the same time.

  ‘I hope it’s somewhere hot and sunny,’ said Tilly as she shivered in the freezing gloom of the winter morning. Under the cover of darkness she and her three pals were on a journey to who-knew-where.

  ‘Well, they weren’t going to tell us in case we blabbed,’ said Janet with down-to-earth logic.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Pru’s voice sailed through the darkness of the back of the truck. ‘Even though we’re doing just as important a job as the men, they still treat as like the little lady.’

  ‘We have to be twice as good at our job to be thought half as clever,’ Tilly answered as a loud shuffling noise interrupted their conversation.

  ‘I’m as stiff as me Aunty Sal,’ Janet complained, wriggling to try to get comfortable.

  ‘Who’s Aunty Sal?’ Tilly asked, wanting to relieve the monotony of this bumpy ride and also take her mind off long-gone days with Drew.

  ‘I don’t know, I never met her; she died before I was born.’ They all peered at Janet in the gloom and was noted her surprise when they fell about laughing.

  ‘You daft mares,’ Janet said in her typical no-nonsense parlance, which sounded a little like Sally’s but not as refined, thought Tilly, knowing that Janet was from the docklands of the north side, and Sally was from the south of Liverpool.

  ‘Ciggie, anyone?’ Janet asked, offering a slim packet of five Woodbines. Tilly compared the difference between the two Scousers to pass the time, knowing Janet was quite partial to a gill or two, accompanied by a Senior Service or, like now, when money was a bit tight before payday, a Woodbine. Whereas, Sally didn’t drink unless it was an occasion and had never smoked, which was just as well because Tilly’s mum didn’t like the smell, but one thing the two girls did have in common was a heart of gold – they would help anybody in need and they both shared a black humour that some might find offensive if they didn’t know them.

  ‘Well, seeing as you’re having a smoke, girls …’ said the sergeant in the front of the truck as he lit his pipe. Tilly inhaled the aroma, which immediately brought Archie to mind, and she smiled. She liked Archie and was glad he was back home looking out for her mum … Tilly was aware that her thoughts were jumping from one situation to another; memories randomly popped into her head uninvited and she allowed them to wander, determined not to worry about the future, as the truck bumped its way towards their destination.

  ‘I’ve got that feeling in my stomach again,’ said Pru. ‘You know the one you got as a kid when you were getting ready for a party or a trip to the seaside?’ There was a little giggle in her voice, Tilly noticed.

  Then Janet piped up: ‘Living in Seaforth, I ’ad the seaside on my doorstep so that’s no excitement for me.’ She paused momentarily. ‘Anyway, the last thing I want on my mind right now is home.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to think of anything that will take my mind off home’ said Tilly, knowing that she was also trying to stop herself from thinking about Drew as well.

  ‘My flippin’ mind
keeps going back home now,’ Janet complained, ‘and it’s getting on me nerves!’ Janet continued.

  Pru, undeterred, exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke and said in a haughty voice, ‘Are you going to be miserable for the duration, Janet?’

  However, Janet didn’t answer as Veronica said in her low Scottish burr, ‘It’ll be something to tell our grandchildren; that’s for sure.’

  ‘Not if I get me head knocked off it won’t.’ Janet refused to be pacified. ‘I don’t know why I agreed to come on this trip.’

  ‘I think that was because you volunteered – and the man at the War Office didn’t know you were only joking,’ Pru said wryly, and, for a moment, there was a dead silence, before the cry of seagulls and the sharp tang of sea air hit their senses.

  ‘We’re going on a ship!’ Veronica said, her voice full of excitement now as the truck stopped and the canvas flap was lifted by the heavy-set, khaki-clad sergeant, who released the tail-gate and helped them jump down.

  ‘Oh, goody,’ said Janet drily, ‘a day at the seaside! It’s just like Southport, and just as wet!’ They looked around at their surroundings and realised that they weren’t at Portsmouth Naval Base, as they’d expected, hoping to be shipped somewhere hot and exotic. And their palpable disappointment erupted in groans of protest when they were informed they were to embark on a waiting paddle steamer for a trip across the Solent – to the Isle of Wight.

  ‘The Isle of Wight?’ Janet asked incredulously. ‘I’ll never get a suntan on the Isle of Wight!’

  ‘Have you ever been before?’ asked Pru, who had, apparently, been everywhere, so she said. Janet shook her head and Pru informed her friend with a nod of satisfaction, ‘Well, I have and it is absolutely beautiful.’

  ‘In what way?’ Janet’s voice had a prove-it-to-me quality. ‘In a hot and sunny way that can catch a suntan?’ She knew the only thing she could catch in this weather was pneumonia. ‘If I wanted pale white skin I could have stayed in Seaforth, or anywhere else in the British Isles for that matter.’ She refused to acknowledge Pru’s look of disapproval.