My Sweet Valentine

by Annie Groves

  Olive noted with gratitude the collective sucked-in breaths of his listeners. How wise he was to give them all a stark warning of the danger of trying to be too gung-ho.

  ‘Now,’ Sergeant Dawson continued, ‘when it comes to those incendiaries that can be dealt with, this is how to do that.’ Turning towards Olive he asked her, ‘If I could trouble you for a bucketful of water, Ol— Mrs Robbins?’ before turning back to his audience.

  ‘If you aren’t already doing so just make sure that you fill what you can with cold water at night, just in case, especially baths, because should a local water main be hit then your stirrup pump isn’t going to work.

  ‘Hitler’s incendiary bombs are designed to penetrate any roofs on which they land, via their sharp fins. Then once they’re safely inside, they’ll explode, showering whatever room they’re in with burning magnesium sparks that will quickly start fires. Our task as fire-watchers is to make sure that that doesn’t happen, and that’s why every time there’s an air-raid warning the first thing you do is make sure that those who are supposed to be watching for falling incendiaries do so. That’s why you need a team of watchers, in pairs say, one every five or six houses. It’s the same principle as that old warning that a stitch in time saves nine. Spotting where the incendiaries fall means that with luck your team can get to them and put them out before they get the opportunity to do any damage. And that’s where your Redhill container and your long-handled shovel and hoe come in.

  ‘Say, for instance, one of you saw an incendiary fall, the closest watcher would send his or her partner round to the house concerned with their equipment. The long handle of the hoe and the shovel mean that it’s possible for whoever is using them to keep well away from the bomb itself whilst they scoop some sand out of the container to put on the bomb to put the fire out. The sand and the bomb can then be hoed up and placed in the container itself to be doubly sure it is out.

  ‘As an alternative, or if a fire has already taken hold, what you must do is carefully open the door onto the room with the fire, making sure that you keep the door between you and the fire, and then aim the water from the pump either at the ceiling to fall on the fires, or at the fire itself.

  ‘Keeping your sand in a wheelbarrow can be a good idea. Then you’ve got it readily transportable.’

  ‘Well, I certainly won’t be filling my wheelbarrow with sand,’ Mr Charlton protested. ‘I need my barrow for my gardening. And there’s no point in saying we buy more. They can’t be had.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to manage between us,’ Olive assured him. It was so kind of Sergeant Dawson to put himself out like this, especially when some people were being so unenthusiastic.

  ‘If you wish, on Sunday after church I’ll be available to give a practical demonstration of what I mean whilst it’s still light,’ the sergeant offered generously.

  ‘It all sounds very complicated and dangerous. If you ask me I’d say it would be better for us to let the professionals deal with any fires, instead of trying to do it ourselves,’ said Mrs Charlton apprehensively.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Miss Jane Barker spoke up firmly, ‘although, Olive my dear, if I can make one suggestion it would be that you pair up those of us who aren’t as agile as we once were for fire-watching duty with a younger person who is steadier and swifter on their feet. I do believe too that we can manage our garden without our wheelbarrow, if that will help.’

  Drew smiled as he listened to her. He felt so proud to be accepted by these brave and stalwart people that he had come to admire so much. When he wrote his articles for his newspaper back at home he tried to convey something of the simple unselfconscious, shrugged aside as ‘nothing special’ bravery, of the ordinary people of London, but so often he felt that he was not doing them justice. The truth was, he suspected, that you had to be here to understand and appreciate the true nature of a Londoner’s determination to save their city.

  It was gone ten o’clock before everyone had gone, the Misses Barker and, rather surprisingly, Mr Whittaker, lingering until well after the sergeant had excused himself to return to his duties.

  ‘Of course, the fact that Mr Whittaker is still here has nothing to do with Mum’s offer of supper,’ Tilly said ruefully to Agnes, as she mashed up a tin of American corned beef with some cold boiled potatoes, whilst Agnes diced some onions, ready to make the mix into corned beef hash, for Olive to fry for supper.

  ‘I feel sorry for him,’ Agnes told her as Tilly wrinkled her nose, grateful that Agnes had volunteered to slice the onions, knowing that Tilly was going out dancing the following night and wouldn’t want any lingering smell on her hands. ‘He must be so lonely living on his own, especially now that the Longs have gone and their house is empty.’

  ‘You’re a softie, do you know that?’ Tilly teased her. ‘He’s such a crosspatch and so mean.’

  ‘He used to give money to the orphanage,’ Agnes told her. ‘We all used to be frightened of him because when we walked past his house he would come out into the garden and glare at us. Matron always said that we shouldn’t judge him because only God knows what is truly in a person’s heart.’

  ‘Is that mash ready, girls?’ Olive demanded, hurrying in from the front room where she’d settled her ‘team’. ‘Put the kettle on again, will you, Tilly? They’ll have to eat their supper in here. I’m not having my front room smelling of fried meat and potato and onions, even if it is a blessing to be able to have onions again after last year’s shortage. Sally’s done us all proud with those she’s grown.’

  ‘Please change your mind and take me with you tomorrow, Drew,’ Tilly begged a little later when everyone else had left and she was saying a final good night to Drew in the protective darkness outside the front door.

  ‘You know I can’t,’ said Drew.

  ‘That means that I’m going to have to do something far more dangerous than sit with you whilst you listen to someone telling you about the looters,’ Tilly sighed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Drew demanded, alarmed.

  ‘I mean that now I’m going to have to go round the markets whilst Dulcie looks for a new dress to wear tomorrow night.’

  Drew relaxed. ‘Oh, yes, that sounds very dangerous indeed,’ he agreed, mock solemnly.

  ‘It will be,’ Tilly assured him. ‘You don’t know what Dulcie can be like when she’s got her mind fixed on something. From the minute she persuaded Wilder to go to the Café de Paris she’s been going on about getting herself what she calls “a really posh frock like ladies and that wear”, and knowing Dulcie, that will mean going round every second-hand stall in London until she finds what she wants.’

  ‘Mmm, sounds a terrible way to spend a Saturday afternoon,’ Drew agreed, bending his head to kiss her.

  ‘Afternoon and morning,’ Tilly told him, holding him off for a few seconds before wrapping her arms around his neck and responding to his kiss with an appreciative, ‘Mmm. Drew, that is so nice.’

  NINE

  ‘Well, what was wrong with that pretty crêpe de Chine we saw on that first stall we looked at, Dulcie, the grey one with the cream lace collar?’

  ‘That thing? It looked like something a schoolteacher would wear. No, I want something much better than that. I want the sort of thing a proper lady with a title would wear, Tilly. After all, it is the Café de Paris that Wilder’s taking me to.’

  Tilly sighed. She wanted to urge Dulcie to be careful about making too much of an effort on Wilder’s behalf. She didn’t want her friend to end up being hurt, although she knew that if she said as much to Dulcie herself she would tell her scornfully that nothing could hurt her.

  ‘What’s going on over there?’ Dulcie demanded.

  ‘Where?’ Tilly asked her. It was a raw cold March day with spring still too far away for anyone to feel that winter was ever going to end. Huddled into her coat, her knitted hat pulled right down over the tips of her ears to keep them warm, Tilly would have given anything to be with Drew instead of here.


  ‘That stall we was looking at a little while back, the one that had next to nothing on it and them women hanging around looking shifty. You know, the ones that I said looked like they were some sort of Soho men’s club cabaret dancers – or worse. The canvas has been let down like she’s about to close the stall but them women are still there. Summat’s going on there and I want to know what it is.’

  Without waiting to see if Tilly was with her, Dulcie immediately plunged into the crowd, leaving Tilly to follow her as she set off at a fast walk between the market stalls. Sliding on the greasy cobbles, Tilly almost had to run to catch up with her.

  ‘’Ere, I’m closed. You can’t come barging in here. So take yourself off,’ the stall holder was protesting to Dulcie by the time Tilly caught up with her and managed to wriggle her way around the canvas as Dulcie herself had done.

  ‘Closed, is it?’ Dulcie demanded, eyeing the tumble of clothes spilling out of the half-open scruffy and worn-looking suitcase that was now lying on the otherwise bare boards of the stall. ‘So what’s them then?’

  ‘It’s private orders, that’s what it is,’ one of the three girls they had seen at the stall earlier told Dulcie, eyeing her angrily. There wasn’t any hesitation or shrinking back in the other young women now, Tilly noted. Quite the opposite. Their manner reminded Tilly of alley cats ready to fight over a piece of discarded fish. Enclosed in this small space with them, Tilly couldn’t help staring a little at their garish stage makeup. They were all wearing bright blue eye shadow, rouge staining their cheeks and their lips covered in deep red lipstick, whilst their carefully curled hair was beginning to uncurl in the cold damp air.

  It wasn’t in Tilly’s nature to judge others unkindly. The girls looked thin and tired, and she felt both curious about them and the life they must live, as well as slightly sorry for them.

  Soho cabaret dancers, Dulcie had labelled them, and in such a way that it had been obvious that she didn’t think very much of them at all. Tilly wasn’t so naïve as not to know that the services provided by many of the girls who worked in Soho’s clubs went far beyond merely dancing for customers.

  Now, close up to them, Tilly could see where their eye shadow had run into the tired creases around their eyes. They smelled of cigarettes, mingled with cheap scent and sweat, and it was an effort for Tilly not wrinkle up her nose a little in distaste.

  Dulcie, on the other hand, wasn’t paying much attention to the girls she had been so scathing about earlier. Instead she was confronting the stall holder.

  ‘Private order? More like looted – stolen – from somewhere to order, if you was to ask me. There’s a law against that, you know.’

  ‘You just be careful what you’re saying, missie,’ the stall holder warned Dulcie angrily. ‘Genuine second-hand, these things are, and round here we have a few laws of our own about what ’appens to people who go round accusing other people of fings they ain’t done.’

  Feeling concerned for Dulcie’s safety, Tilly touched her arm and warned, ‘Dulcie, I think …’

  But Dulcie shook her hand off and, without even looking at her, told the stall holder, ‘I’m from the East End meself, so I ain’t going to be saying nuffink to no one.’

  Amazed to hear Dulcie speaking in such an unfamiliar and strong East End accent, Tilly looked at her friend but Dulcie wasn’t taking any notice.

  ‘Oh, come on, Marge, ignore her. Let’s have a look see what your ’Arry’s brought us,’ one of the showgirls was demanding, reaching towards the case as she spoke to pull out the contents.

  Dulcie had been right when she had suggested that the clothes were looted, Tilly suspected, as half a dozen beautiful gowns spilled out onto the boards. She could see quite plainly on one of them a label that said ‘Norman Hartnell’, whom everyone knew was one of the Queen’s favourite couturiers. If Drew had been here he would have wanted to know by what means the dresses had got here and where they were from, Tilly knew.

  The girls, including Dulcie, were already diving in and picking up the dresses, the gloves off quite literally as the young women examined the merchandise.

  ‘See this one,’ one of them announced triumphantly grabbing the dress with the Norman Hartnell label. ‘I swear on me ma’s life that I saw one of them debs wearing one just like it when my friend took me to the Ritz. ’Ere, that’s mine,’ she objected angrily when Dulcie made a sudden swift movement and dragged the gown from her possession.

  ‘Not now it isn’t,’ Dulcie informed her emphatically and with obvious satisfaction, bundling the dress up and thrusting it into Tilly’s hands. ’Ere, you take this, Tilly, and then we’ll go and meet up with our Ricky. Him and his mates will have come out of the boxing club by now.’

  Blinking a little at this piece of fiction, Tilly clutched the dress and stayed silent.

  ‘She’s not going anywhere with that Norman Hartnell. It’s mine,’ the girl who had originally picked up the dress yelled furiously at Dulcie, trying to make a grab for it and failing as Dulcie placed herself determinedly in front of Tilly.

  Dulcie turned to the angry-looking stall holder, telling her, ‘I’ll give you a fiver for it.’

  ‘That’s my frock and she isn’t having it,’ the showgirl was insisting.

  ‘Stop that screeching, will you, Eliza?’ the stall holder demanded. ‘You’ll have the whole of ruddy Scotland Yard down on us if you keep on like that. And as for you,’ she confronted Dulcie, ‘Ten guineas, that frock is. Like it says on the label it’s a Norman Hartnell, and if you can’t pay then Eliza here will, won’t you?’

  ‘Ten guineas. You told us that we could have the stuff for five guineas apiece, with Dot here finding out from her gentleman friend when the house would be empty—’

  An angry shove in the ribs from one of the girls, who seemed to be their leader, had Eliza glowering at her and nursing her side.

  ‘A fiver, and I won’t even say a word to no one about … anything …’ Dulcie announced smugly.

  ‘No, it’s mine …’

  ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake, Eliza, put a sock in it, will yer? Marge is right, that racket you’re creating will have the Old Bill sniffing round here and no mistake. Give it to her, Marge,’ Dot instructed, pushing aside the others to come and stand in front of Dulcie and Tilly, her hands on her hips as she surveyed them both, but her attention focused primarily on Dulcie.

  ‘Give us your fiver then,’ she demanded, holding out a hand, the bright red nail varnish she was wearing chipped and the nails underneath it slightly grimy.

  As Dulcie did so, she added grimly, ‘You might have got away with it this time, but I’ve got a good memory for faces, so don’t come round here trying them kind of tricks again ’cos it won’t work, and you’ll end up the worse for it, I can promise you that. There’s friends of mine that won’t take too kindly to what you’ve done, and that yeller head of yours won’t so look if you was to be accidentally tarred and feavvered, like.’

  Tilly couldn’t stop herself from giving an audible indrawn breath of shock, but Dulcie didn’t look in the least bit concerned, as she handed over her money.

  Taking it from her, the stall holder told her, ‘Now buzz off, the pair of you, and remember, don’t come back.’

  ‘Well, if that wasn’t a piece of luck. Not that it was just luck, of course. You’ve got to keep your eyes open and your wits about you if you want to get bargains like that,’ Dulcie announced happily, as she linked her arm through Tilly’s and guided her away from the market.

  ‘But, Dulcie, you don’t even know if the dress will fit you,’ Tilly felt bound to point out.

  ‘’Course it will fit me,’ Dulcie told her, coming to a standstill and pulling Tilly round to face her. ‘It’s bound to.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ Tilly asked

  Dulcie heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Them girls was the same size as me and them frocks had been pinched to order for them, so it’s bound to fit me, see?’

  ‘If the dresses were stolen.’ Til
ly began as they set off walking again, her conscience pricking her, ‘then—’

  For a second time Dulcie stopped dead in the street and whirled her round.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Tilly. What went on by that stall is between you and me and the gatepost and it isn’t going to get told to anyone else, understand? As far as anyone else is concerned, we saw the frock on a stall and we was told that it was second-hand. You aren’t to go saying anything to anyone about looting or anything like that. Besides, what would happen if you was to report it? Nothing, that’s what, except that someone else would end up with my dress, and I’m not having that.’

  There was nothing she could say that would persuade Dulcie to change her mind, Tilly knew, just as she knew how shocked and disapproving her mother would be if she were to learn the truth about the dress.

  There was one person she intended to exclude from Dulcie’s ban on her mentioning what had happened, though, and that was Drew.

  ‘Come on, there’s a shop down here where they rent out fur jackets, and I want to see what they’ve got.’

  Tilly looked at her watch. It was one o’clock. Drew would be meeting his contact any minute now. She would far rather be with him than going looking at fur jackets with Dulcie, and she suspected that if he had seen what had happened this morning even Drew would have agreed that she would be safer with him than with Dulcie.

  ‘I’m going to Fleet Street to see Drew,’ she told Dulcie, feeling very grown up and independent. ‘I’ll meet you back home.’

  ‘All right,’ Dulcie agreed, adding unexpectedly, ‘Here, you take this and put it in your handbag,’ thrusting the dress at Tilly. ‘Just in case anyone decides to try and take it back,’ she explained when Tilly looked surprised.

  Immediately Tilly’s surprise turned to concern.