My Sweet Valentine

by Annie Groves

  ‘She doesn’t normally, but she had something to tell me that she thought I ought to know,’ David responded.

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘She wanted to tell me about Lydia being at the Café de Paris the other weekend.’

  Dulcie digested this statement warily. Lydia had obviously told David’s mother about seeing her and the row they had had because she had wanted it reported back to David. Instinctively Dulcie reacted just as she had done as a child when Edith had gone running to tell their mother about something Dulcie had done that would get her into trouble.

  Leaping to defend herself, she said sharply, ‘Well, of course Lydia would tell your mother about her seeing me there and what happened. Not that it was much of a row or anything, us having words, but—’

  ‘You were at the Café de Paris the night it was bombed?’ David stopped her. He was surprised at the intensity of the surge of relief he felt that she had obviously escaped from the bombing and was safe. Not that he was going to dwell on that feeling. What was the point? Dulcie might be willing to come and see him. She might even give the impression of enjoying her visits to him, but David wasn’t a fool. He wasn’t the man she had flirted with any more, and Dulcie certainly didn’t have any female interest in him as the man he now was.

  ‘Yes, Wilder took me to make up for not taking me out on Valentine’s Day. Not that we stayed long, and that was just as well, seeing what happened there. Horrible, it was. Sally said they had that many coming in injured from it they could barely cope. And I don’t know how Lydia could have the brass face to complain to anyone about me. She wasn’t even with that chap I saw her with at the Ritz. She was with some young officer, and—’

  ‘She’s dead, Dulcie. She was killed. Lydia’s dead. She was one of those who got it with the bomb. That’s why my mother came to see me. She came to tell me that Lydia is dead.’

  For once in her life Dulcie was truly lost for words. Stumbling uncertainly she told him, ‘Well, that must have been a shock for you, and no mistake. Must have upset you as well, her being your wife and everything—’

  ‘Not really,’ David stopped her. ‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t feel a damn thing. Shocking of me to say that, I know,’ he continued when Dulcie simply sat and stared at him, ‘but it’s the truth. Now I have shocked you.’ He pulled a face, his voice bitter. ‘But then of course I dare say it is far more shocking that a young woman like Lydia should be killed whilst she was out enjoying herself than a man like me should lose his legs. After all, I was only doing my duty and serving my country. I dare say there are even those who’d think I deserve what happened to me.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ Dulcie tried to stop him, grabbing hold of her scattered thoughts, and well aware what Sister would have to say if she thought that one of her patients had been upset, but David ignored her.

  ‘If I hadn’t joined but stayed at home instead, in a safe job, then Lydia would be alive now,’ he continued, ‘at least that’s what my mother seems to think.’

  ‘Sounds like your ma is a bit like mine,’ Dulcie told him stalwartly. ‘Always thought more of our Edith than me, our mother did, and since she was reported missing and presumed dead, all Ma has ever done is go on about how much she misses her.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’ David asked her. ‘Your sister, I mean.’

  ‘No I don’t,’ Dulcie responded truthfully and emphatically. ‘Not one little bit. Of course I wouldn’t have wanted her to die – but I don’t miss her. Her and me never got on. Always our mum’s favourite, she was, and didn’t she know it. Mean and spiteful, I always thought her, running to our mum to tell tales and get her sympathy. Spoiled her rotten, Mum did, putting her up on the kitchen table when she was little and getting her to sing for the neighbours. Never said one word to her, Mum didn’t later, when Edith started borrowing my good clothes without a by-your-leave. Shared a bedroom, we did. That’s why I got meself a room at number 13, ’cos I was sick of Edith parading around in my things. Rick, our brother, wot’s out fighting that Rommel in the desert was the only one who understood how I felt. If Mum hadn’t encouraged her to think she could be a singer she might even be alive now because it was on account of her going to sing in public that she got killed the night the place was bombed. Not that they ever found her body. Mum’s never bin the same since that happened. She might have thought the world of Edith but I never did. I’m sorry she’s gone, for Mum’s sake, but not for me own,’ Dulcie announced defiantly.

  ‘I feel the same way about Lydia,’ David told her. He looked at her and then admitted, ‘You are the only person I can say that to, Dulcie. I’ve had doctors and nurses in here telling me how sorry they are about Lydia ever since my mother came to break the news. It’s getting on my nerves having to pretend that I care, but I don’t. I can’t, and to be honest I don’t even want to care.’

  ‘Well, why should you?’ Dulcie responded pragmatically. ‘After all, she went and let you down, didn’t she? Carrying on with that chap I saw her with at the Ritz, and then acting like she was something special and looking down her nose at me at the Café de Paris, never mind that I was wearing me Norman Hartnell gown and her with some other chap in tow, and it plain to see what was going on between them. Mind you, I give her as good as I got,’ she added with some relish. ‘Told her in no uncertain terms, I did, what I thought of her and the way she’d treated you.’

  ‘Was that what the row was about?’ David asked.

  ‘Yes. Well, me and her never did get on,’ Dulcie felt bound to acknowledge.

  ‘Which was why you flirted with me when I saw you in Selfridges, was it?’ David teased her.

  Bridling slightly, Dulcie shook her head. ‘I never flirted with you. I’m not the sort to do that, and I won’t have you saying that I was. You were the one that bought me that vanity case.’

  ‘You know what I think, Dulcie?’

  ‘What?’ Dulcie asked warily.

  ‘I think that you and I are two of a kind.’

  ‘Well, as to that I’m as good as that Lydia was any day of the week, no matter what your ma might like to think,’ Dulcie was quick to claim. She didn’t really understand what David was getting at, but knowing that he was prepared to talk to her the way he had about Lydia certainly made her feel justified that she had challenged the other girl at the Café de Paris.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘There, that’s a barrowful of sand ready for the Misses Barker,’ Drew smiled at Tilly as he tipped the final shovelful of sand from the stockpile in the garden of number 49 into the waiting wheelbarrow.

  The Easter sunshine slanted across his face, his look of male pleasure in a physical job well done making Tilly smile and filling her heart with so much tenderness that she released the handles of the barrow she had been about to wheel out through the back garden gate and then along the path to the Misses Barkers’. Instead, she went to put her arms around him. The jumper he was wearing smelled dangerously of soap and just a hint of fresh male sweat. Dangerously, because being this close to him always brought home to Tilly all that she was missing because her mother refused to allow them to marry.

  Smiling down at her, Drew picked out of her curls the pink blossom that had come from the gnarled apple tree in the middle of the neglected garden.

  ‘I took the paper into work so that everyone could read that piece you wrote about the looters,’ she told him proudly. ‘It was so good, Drew.’

  ‘Not as good as it could have been if I’d been able to speak directly to some of those involved.’

  Tilly smiled understandingly. She knew how disappointed he’d been that he hadn’t been able to make contact with any of the looters.

  ‘Well, you know what Sergeant Dawson said after he’d read your article. He said that even the police are having trouble infiltrating the looting gangs.

  ‘When are you going to let me read your book?’ Tilly wheedled, changing the subject as she leaned against him. She already knew the answer, but nevertheless she re
gularly attempted to persuade Drew to change his mind and let her read the book he was writing.

  ‘Not until it’s finished,’ Drew answered as she had known that he would.

  ‘But if it’s about the war and all of us, then …’ she began, and then stopped, her face clouding over.

  Olive, who had come down initially to make sure that Mr Whittaker was all right, and who had then decided that she may as well pop into number 49 to see how Tilly and Drew were getting on, paused with the back door half open as she witnessed their intimacy.

  ‘Don’t look like that, Tilly,’ she heard Drew say. ‘I hate it when you look unhappy.’

  Olive swallowed painfully. Drew wasn’t the only one who felt like that.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Tilly told him, both of them oblivious to the fact that they weren’t alone and that their conversation could easily be overhead. ‘I really can’t, Drew. We don’t know when the war will end or what’s going to happen, who is going to win, whether we’ll still be alive when it’s over.’ Her voice broke and Drew tightened his hold on her.

  The awful sight she had witnessed the night the incendiaries had fallen on Article Row still tormented Tilly, he knew, even though she didn’t like talking about the effect it had had on her. He hated seeing her so distressed and knowing that there was so little he could do to comfort her.

  ‘I hate living the way we are,’ Tilly continued passionately. ‘I hate feeling that we’re wasting time now, marking time until the war is over, just to please my mother. We’re alive now; we don’t know if we’ll even be alive tomorrow. I want to live now – with you – as your wife. My mother claims she’s protecting me, but protecting me from what? Being happy? Is that what she really wants? We might only have today, Drew. I can’t bear knowing that, and knowing that my mother is stopping me from being with you.’

  ‘Oh, Tilly.’

  ‘It isn’t fair, Drew. It really isn’t. Mum hasn’t said a word about the fact that Sally and George have gone away together for Easter, and yet she won’t even let us get engaged. I felt so envious of Sally this morning, going away with her George, just the two of them, with no one to spy on them or tell them what to do.’

  ‘Sally is older than you,’ Drew felt honour-bound to point out, ‘and her situation is very different from yours. She doesn’t have a mother to worry and be anxious for her.’

  Drew had wanted his comment to remind Tilly of how much more fortunate than Sally she was to have her mother but, to his dismay, instead Tilly lifted her head from his shoulder to look up into his face and tell him bitterly, ‘Lucky her. I wish I had her freedom.’

  Behind the half-open door Olive felt the pain knot her stomach and send her heart into a shocked race of maternal hurt. Releasing the door, she walked blindly towards the hallway, opening the front door to stumble out into the April sunshine, Tilly’s cruel words still ringing in her head.

  Out in the garden, Drew gave Tilly a small admonishing shake. ‘You don’t mean that,’ he challenged her.

  ‘No,’ Tilly agreed. ‘I don’t. I just wish that she’d understand.’

  ‘As no doubt your mother wishes you would understand her,’ Drew told her gently.

  ‘I’ve had enough, Drew,’ Tilly told him. ‘When I saw Sally coming downstairs this morning with her case, she looked so happy, and so … so expectant …’ was the only way Tilly felt able to describe Sally’s look of glowing anticipation and joy. ‘I want to look like that for you. I want …’

  She didn’t need to say or try to explain any more. Drew was taking her back in his arms, the wheelbarrow and its contents forgotten as he kissed her and Tilly kissed him back.

  ‘I know how impatient you are for us to get married, Tilly,’ Drew told her as he released her, ‘and I feel the same, but perhaps we do need to be a bit more patient with your mom and give her more time to get used to the idea.’

  ‘You say that, but I’m frightened, Drew. I’m so afraid that something will happen to part us. It makes me feel that I have to do everything I can to make sure that we’re together now.’ Overhead, clouds covered the sun and Tilly shivered. ‘It hurts me so much that Mum can’t – won’t – understand that. Sometimes I even think that maybe she wants us to part. I know that’s silly but I just feel so afraid and … and so alone sometimes, Drew. Ever since that night …’

  ‘Oh, my poor darling girl,’ Drew tried to comfort her. ‘I promise you that whilst I have breath in my body I will never let anything or anyone come between us or keep us apart. I mean that, Tilly. You have my word on that. You are my girl. You are the only girl for me. Nothing can change that. I want you to tell me that you believe me when I say that, and that you will stop worrying.’

  ‘I believe you, Drew,’ said Tilly sombrely.

  ‘Promise me?’ Drew insisted. ‘Promise me that you know that I will never ever stop loving you, Tilly?’

  ‘I promise,’ Tilly told him. She could feel the love and the truth in his promise to her. But not even Drew’s assurance could banish the fear that had taken root inside her heart. What if it was something else that parted them? Something that did have the power to separate them for ever? Death had that power. Tilly closed her eyes against the panic and fear exploding inside her. She must not burden Drew with the awfulness of her dread, or worry him about the truly horrible and increasingly intense nightmares in which she could see him burning to death behind the wall of fire that separated them. She was too ashamed of her own weakness and fear to tell him that the main reason she was so angry with her mother for keeping them apart was because she had become convinced that she was going to lose him and that he would be killed. She had always thought of herself as a strong person, but she’d been wrong. She wasn’t strong, she was cowardly and weak, and that was something she hated knowing about herself, never mind admitting to anyone else, especially when everyone else was being so brave.

  ‘Come on. Let’s deliver this barrowload of sand to the Misses Barker before lunchtime,’ Drew told her, reaching for the barrow. Tilly nodded. She felt so ashamed of her cowardice and her fear, so unable to discuss it with anyone because of that shame, and so very alone with those feelings.

  Olive had almost reached number 13 when she saw Barney coming towards her accompanied by two older boys. He gave them an anxious look, as though somehow he felt he needed to seek their approval, before responding to her ‘hello’.

  ‘Up to no good they are, you mark my words,’ Nancy, who was standing at her front gate, her arms folded, announced as soon as Olive came within earshot.

  The last thing she wanted right now was to have to stand and listen to one of Nancy’s complaints, Olive thought miserably, but knowing Nancy as she did, she recognised that there was no escape and that Nancy fully intended to have her say.

  Olive had to admit that she herself didn’t much like the look of the two youths with Barney. She had recognised them as the two boys who had been helping out the man repairing the door to number 49, but she didn’t want to encourage Nancy to complain about Barney so she kept her thoughts to herself, saying instead, ‘Barney’s a nice boy, Nancy.’

  ‘With the background he’s got? How can you say that? The Dawsons shouldn’t be allowed to foist him off on decent folk like they have.’

  ‘I’ve got to get in,’ Olive excused herself. ‘Drew and Tilly will be coming in for their lunch any minute.’

  ‘I’m surprised that you’re letting your Tilly spend so much time alone with her young man, Olive. It’s asking for trouble, if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, I’m not asking you, Nancy, and now if you’ll excuse me …’

  Olive could feel her ears burning with a mixture of anger and guilt as she turned her back on her open-mouthed neighbour and hurried inside. If she’d stayed and had to listen to more of Nancy’s criticisms and complaints, Olive felt that she wouldn’t have been able to trust herself not to snap fiercely at her, especially when she criticised Tilly.

  Tilly … Olive’s hands trembled as she
removed her coat and went to fill the kettle.

  What she had heard Tilly saying had shocked and hurt her, but surely it also confirmed that she was right to think that Tilly wasn’t mature enough yet for marriage. Putting the kettle down without turning on the gas, Olive found herself staring at the wall. All she was trying to do was protect Tilly, as any loving mother would. She was right to do that, wasn’t she?

  ‘Oh, this is lovely. Heavenly, in fact.’

  George smiled at Sally as they walked arm in arm together through the pretty woodland glade with its spring carpet of bluebells, a fresh green canopy of unfurling leaves overhead, the sunlight dappling light and shadow through the branches.

  They’d arrived in the small Berkshire village just over an hour ago and, having booked into the White Hart, the pub-cum-hotel where they were staying, they’d come out to explore their surroundings.

  It had been Sally who had suggested that they try to get away over Easter since, after Good Friday, they were both off for the rest of the Easter holiday. It was Sally too who had chosen their destination and booked their rooms after another sister at Barts had recommended the place to her. Two rooms, booked in their real names, not the subterfuge adopted by some young couples who chose to share a room under an assumed married name. Two rooms, each with its own bed, but tonight Sally fully intended that they would be using only one of those rooms and sharing its bed.

  Thinking of that now, she asked George, ‘Did you get you-know-what?’

  Was he really blushing slightly? If so, that only made Sally love him all the more.

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed, ‘but I’m not sure that we should be doing this, Sally. Do you really think that it’s wise?’ he questioned, the huskiness in his voice betraying to her what he really thought.