by Lizzie Lane
‘Hello, Bettina. What are …?’
She’d been about to dig into her basket and take everything out to put away. On seeing the way everyone was staring at her – Ruby, her father and Bettina – her hands flopped on to the handle of the basket. A cold chill crept over her.
‘It’s Mike, isn’t it?’ She looked from Bettina to her father and sister. There was fear in her voice. Her hands began to shake.
‘He’s alive, Mary,’ said her father, up from his chair and his arm around her.
He went on to tell her about the plane catching fire on landing. He reached out and laid his hands on both her aching shoulders.
‘The station commander said it’s understandable that you’d want to be with him, so he’s sending you a travel warrant. He didn’t say anything about finding you somewhere to stay, but he’s left his number. No doubt he can arrange somewhere.’
Mary nodded. There was the cottage of course, the one she had declined so many times. For some strange reason she couldn’t mention it. Fate was dragging her to it.
Her sister Ruby bit her lip as she brushed her hair back from her face. ‘I’ll help you pack. You will be going up there, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will.’ Mary’s voice was uncommonly sharp. ‘It’s where I should be.’ Her voice was as shaky as her hands. ‘I should have been there. Then perhaps …’
‘You wouldn’t have been able to prevent it, my darling girl,’ said Bettina giving Mary’s arm a reassuring squeeze.
‘I know. But I would have been there.’
The telephone rang for a second time that night, close to eleven o’clock. The caller asked for Mrs Mary Dangerfield.
Mary’s face was pale and her hands were still shaking when she took the telephone from Ruby’s hands. It was Guy, Mike’s friend, calling to express his sympathies and offer help.
‘If there’s anything I can do, you only have to say. I have taken the initiative and put a few things in the cottage – a fire, some food, etc.’
She thanked him.
‘What time are you arriving?’
She tried to clear her head, to rake the details from her mind. She knew the time the train pulled into the station simply because it would be the one Michael usually caught. She couldn’t seem to concentrate.
‘Look. Never mind. Give me a ring when you know. I’ll be waiting at the station. The cottage is ready for you to stay in. I’ll take care of you. Mike’s a great mate. I’ll have Felix with me. Hope you won’t mind that.’
She said that she wouldn’t. He sounded uncommonly cheerful and although she didn’t know the extent of Mike’s injuries, Guy’s tone conveyed that Mike would recover. When she asked him outright, he confirmed it.
‘Of course he will. I’ve told him that he isn’t getting out of flying with me that way.’ His laugh was light but kindly.
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Of course I’ve seen him. He’s chipper. Looking forward to seeing you too, getting out of the hospital and being with you in Woodbridge Cottage. You’ll love the house. Honest you will.’
As promised Guy was waiting for her at the station, his big black dog beside him wagging its tail.
He was kind and talked all the way to the hospital, which was just as well because Mary couldn’t find her voice. Her thoughts were with Mike.
‘He’s in a specialist unit,’ he said to her, their footsteps echoing along the hospital corridor, the dog having been left in the car. ‘This is the best place in the country for treating burns. Quite a lot of our chaps end up here …’
Mary visibly paled.
Realising he’d said the wrong thing Guy did his best to reassure her. ‘Look. I didn’t mean it that way. He’ll be fine. What I meant was that this is the best place in the country for treating burns.’
His reassurances only went halfway to calming her down. Nurses, doctors and patients, the doors to hospital wards were passed without her really noticing.
‘Hey! Gibbo!’
Mary knew instantly somebody Guy knew was hailing him by his nickname.
‘Cartwright! How the devil are you?’ He shook the man’s hand.
Feeling as though her legs had turned to water, Mary stood there and stared. The man standing in front of her was wearing an RAF uniform. His cap was tucked beneath his arm and he was a head taller than she was. His voice had a slight lisp, but that wasn’t what struck her the most. One side of the man’s face was rutted and dented as though somebody had attacked the surface with a wood chisel. The skin of one eyelid was stretched from eyebrow to cheekbone giving his face a lopsided look.
Mary didn’t need anyone to tell her that his face was the result of burns and the attempt of a surgeon to put him back together again.
‘May I introduce you to Mrs Dangerfield,’ said Guy.
‘Mike’s wife? Lovely to see you. I hear you’re expecting a happy addition to the family. Mike told me. He was over the moon. That’s why I think he’ll fly through this in record time.’
Mary couldn’t stop staring. The words sounded hollow. She felt Guy’s hand cupping her elbow, guiding her away from the man and along the corridor. The smell of everything to do with hospitals assaulted her senses. It was bad enough any other time, but more so when afflicted with the nausea caused by pregnancy.
The burns unit was at the very end of the corridor, a pair of double doors leading into a ward of six beds, all occupied, all the patients with varying degrees of burns.
Mike was closest to the window. He was laid down flat, some kind of framework holding the bedding away from his body from his waist downwards.
‘Be brave,’ Guy whispered to her.
The dreadful cold feeling that had descended on her when introduced to the pilot with the burned face was hard to ignore, but Guy was right.
‘Mike!’
She couldn’t help sounding relieved and would have thrown herself over him if it hadn’t been for the wire cage inserted beneath the bedclothes.
‘Can I kiss you?’
‘I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.’
His voice was throaty but not groggy. As for his face … Mary stroked his cheek. ‘Your face. It’s still the same.’
‘Yes.’
‘The burns?’
‘Nothing that will kill me – or stop me from flying,’ he added with a sideways glance at his senior officer.
‘I know when I’m not wanted,’ said Guy. ‘Mary, I’ll leave you to it. Never did like being a gooseberry!’
Mike’s eyes met hers. ‘Kiss me, Mary.’
She felt his arms go round her as she kissed him. His hands were bandaged. She found herself stroking the raised part of his bedding, that area with the framework beneath.
She couldn’t bring herself to ask how badly he’d been injured, but he saw her looking.
‘My stomach, mostly, and my hands,’ he said. ‘My legs are fine. And as for everything else, I think it all still works, but you can never tell.’
He smiled. She fancied it was a cheeky smile and instantly knew to what he was referring. In the past she might have blushed, but not now.
‘I haven’t come this far for nothing. You’ll get well again. I’ll make you strong – just as soon as you’re out of here and we’re living in Guy’s cottage.’
The days following Mary’s departure seemed emptier than Ruby had ever known. But then, she thought to herself, it was only natural. They were twins and had hardly been apart from each other since the day they were born.
They learned that Mike had sustained burns to his upper torso and his hands. It would be some time before he flew again, but he would fly, of that they were assured. They were also assured that he’d be out of hospital and back with Mary before the baby was due in September. She also informed them that the cottage was lovely and the people at Scampton had been extremely helpful, especially Guy, Mike’s squadron leader and owner of the dog who had first brought them together.
Although she missed her sister, there
was no time to feel sorry for herself, no time to ponder on what might have been or even to spend too much time in the company of Declan O’Malley. There was a bakery to run, a shop to serve in, her work with the Ministry of Food, and most of all there was Charlie, the little boy who had come into their lives without warning, the reason they had to plough on regardless.
The only fly in the ointment was Gertrude Powell. Her mother Ada, Miriam’s grandmother, had arrived on the train on the same day as Mary had learned of Mike’s injuries, appearing out of the smoke like a ghost.
It was the talk of the village when she marched into the shop, demanded to see her granddaughter and told her to pack. ‘You’re coming to live with me,’ she’d declared.
The customers waiting to be served had lingered to hear the rest of what was going on.
Mrs Powell ordered her mother out of the shop and her daughter to get down into the coal cellar until she’d finished serving.
Buoyed up by her grandmother’s presence, Miriam had refused.
Witnesses said that she looked nervous about going back into the dingy living quarters and had dashed out of the door her grandmother was holding open declaring she had nothing of value to bring with her.
Gertrude Powell had exploded, running out after the pair of them, her black stockings wrinkled around her ankles, her shoes worn down on one side, giving her a bandy look.
‘Ungrateful child! Come back here! Come back this minute!’
Her attention was suddenly taken with a figure on the other side of the alleyway dividing her shop from Stratham House. Bettina Hicks was dressed in lilac from head to toe, the same colour reflected in her pale hair. She was smiling and there was a glint of satisfaction in her eyes.
‘You!’ shouted Gertrude, pointing an accusing finger at the woman she hated most in the village. ‘You! It’s all your fault. Just you wait, Bettina Hicks. I know your secrets and one day I’ll tell the whole world about you and your husband and that nephew of yours. I’ll tell everyone!’
Bettina’s smile widened. She shook her head. ‘Two can play at that game, Gertrude. And don’t you forget it!’
Ruby slid the bolts on the bread shop door and pulled down the blackout curtain that had replaced the brown blind. She winced at the result. The old blind had merely softened the light in the shop; the blackout curtains darkened it.
For a moment she stood with her back to the door. Two loaves of bread remained on the shelves behind the counter plus a few simple scones. It was so quiet she could almost hear herself breathe. She was alone with the smell and the warm air drifting through from the bake house. Mary was with her husband in Lincolnshire, Frances was out with Charlie in his pram and her father had gone to fork Mrs Hicks’s garden.
Her gaze settled on the two remaining loaves. It hadn’t escaped her notice that food was becoming scarcer, especially in the cities. This led her to thinking how much longer she could go on giving demonstrations. It wasn’t so much that the ministry wouldn’t provide, it was more a case of the women she was instructing having to spend hours queuing for the most mundane things.
Worrying never helped anyone, she said to herself. ‘A walk,’ she said and went to fetch her coat.
The early morning rain had cleared. Slate roofs glistened and drainpipes gurgled into water butts. Everyone seemed to have a water butt nowadays the reason being that if the water mains did get bombed, there would always be water to boil in a kettle or water the garden. Growing vegetables had become one of the most important activities in their lives.
Her walk took her to the bridge that went over the railway line. When she got to the middle she stopped, her arms resting on the rough stonework.
Her thoughts returned to that afternoon with Johnnie. She had felt so alive and knew Johnnie had too. In the days following their lovemaking she’d worried about being pregnant. Her fears had not been realised, but she knew beyond doubt that even if she had been, she wouldn’t have cared. In that beautiful moment they had felt so alive, so determined to make themselves feel alive. That’s what it had all been about.
A train approached from the direction of the Midlands line, the smoke from its stack billowing into the December afternoon. She straightened at the prospect of somebody she knew being on that train. It was such a forlorn hope, yet she felt that just like the lovemaking, it had to be believed in. Johnnie might be on that train.
She walked slowly to where the smoke from the train rolled over the bridge obliterating the place where it joined the road. Her heart was racing in line with her heightened anticipation.
The smoke cleared and it was as though everything had become clear. She didn’t regret that moment with Johnnie. If that was all they would ever have, then so be it.
Clasping her hands together she looked down at the railway track, the train gone, the rails polished to a leaden brightness.
The year was drawing to a close. Soon the old year would be behind them. So much had happened including the fall of Singapore and Johnnie had been captured. Her Polish pilot had turned out to be married. Of the good things, finding out about baby Charlie was the best thing of all, and of course Mary getting married.
There were bound to be more difficult times ahead, but deep down she truly believed they had turned the corner. Michael was going to be fine and Mary was having a baby. Surely the world would get better. And that, she decided, is the hope we all have to cling on to.
Read on for some recipes used by the Sweet sisters …
BUTTERFLY CAKES WITH CHOCOLATE
2 oz of fat
2 oz of sugar
1 level teaspoon of cocoa powder
1 fresh egg or one tablespoon of dried egg reconstituted
4 oz of self-raising flour
1 level teaspoon of baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of milk
Cream fat and sugar, beat in egg, add cocoa. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Keep adding a little of the milk until it is soft and creamy. Grease and flour cake tins, put a spoonful of mixture into each one. Bake for twenty minutes in a moderate oven. When cooled slice the top off each cake, add mock cream then slice the tops in half and place in the mock cream so they resemble butterfly wings.
MARY’S WEDDING FOOD
The cake
3 oz sugar
4 oz margarine
1 level tablespoon of honey
8 oz plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
4 fresh eggs (from the local farm) or equivalent in dried egg
1 lb of mixed dried fruit (most of which Mary and Ruby had dried themselves – soft fruits, plums, dried apples)
1 teaspoon of lemon substitute or essence
Milk to mix
Cream sugar with the margarine then add the honey and the eggs. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and spices together. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture finally adding the rest of the ingredients. Line a 7 inch tin with greased paper – margarine wrappers will do – and bake in a moderate oven for two hours.
Mock Marzipan Paste
4 tablespoons mashed potato
1 tablespoon of egg white
1 tablespoon of sugar
A few drops of almond essence
Mix all ingredients well together to a fairly stiff consistency. Spread top of cake with a little honey, blackberry jelly or jam. Press mock marzipan mixture on to cake and press into shape. Pinch edges and score with fork. Put back into the oven to brown. While still hot, sprinkle with grated chocolate if you have it or ice the cake if you happen to find any icing sugar in the shops.
Mary was given what must have been the very last packet of icing sugar left in the village shop so could decorate this (very small) cake with icing. Otherwise she would have had to resort to mixing dried milk (termed household milk at the time), water and sugar, perhaps with a little ar
tificial colouring included. Luckily they had a lot of bread pudding to fill everyone up with! Nothing was wasted in the wartime kitchen.
PILCHARD PASTIES
12 oz self-raising flour or plain with baking powder (Remember the Sweets were bakers so had access to flour, though used it frugally)
Pinch of salt
3 oz cooking fat or bacon fat (or any other fat they were lucky enough to have saved from other meals)
Water
Tin of pilchards – 16 oz if possible
Chopped onions
Salt and pepper
Sift flour, salt, rub in cooking fat. Bind with water. Open tin of pilchards. Drain off excess fluid. Keep to one side. It can be used for other things, e.g. mixing with herbs and onion and spreading it on bread, or for the basis of a soup.
Mash pilchards with chopped onions, season to taste.
Using a teacup rim, make roundels, fill each one with the fish mixture, brush edges with milk and fold in half moon shapes. Small pasties but ideal for a wedding buffet.
CARROT COOKIES
2 tablespoons of margarine
4 tablespoons of sugar
Vanilla essence
8 tablespoons of grated raw carrot
12 tablespoons of self-raising flour
Cream fat and sugar together, beat in flavouring and carrot. Fold in flour. Drop spoonfuls into a greased tart tray. Sprinkle the tops with sugar and bake in oven for about eighteen to twenty minutes.
BACON ROLL
12 oz self-raising flour or plain flour with 3 teaspoons of baking powder
Pinch of salt
3 oz cooking fat or bacon fat
Water
4 oz fat bacon rashers
2 cooked leeks cut into rings or finely chopped whichever you prefer. Mary left them in rings
8 oz diced cooked potatoes
2 tablespoons of chopped chives
Sift the flour and salt, rub in the fat. Bind with water. Grill and chop the bacon rashers, cool then mix with the leeks, potatoes and chives. Roll out the pastry into an oblong shape. Place the mixture down the middle. Starting at one end, roll over and over until you have something that resembles a Swiss roll.