My Sweet Valentine

by Annie Groves

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ Dulcie told her. ‘She’s got nothing to do with me. I’m only giving her a bottle on account of Sally not knowing what to do. Oh, and I hope you can find a half-decent nappy in that case, Sally, ’cos she’s going to need changing pretty soon and I’m not doing that.’

  ‘Callum brought her,’ Sally told Olive.

  Olive knew all about her family history. Sally had confided in her when Callum had turned up on the doorstep on another occasion, hoping to persuade Sally to make her peace with her father.

  ‘Her … my father and her mother are gone. The house was bombed.’

  ‘Poor little mite almost bought it herself,’ Dulcie told Olive. ‘Only got saved because her dad’s body was protecting her. Sally here and that Callum are all she’s got left now.’

  ‘She’s nothing to do with me,’ Sally insisted. ‘I’m sorry about this, Olive. I’ll find somewhere suitable for her as quickly as I can. Matron might know of a suitable orphanage.’

  ‘An orphanage? Oh, Sally, no, please don’t.’

  They could all hear the shock in Agnes’s voice, and Olive’s tender heart ached for her, and for Sally. And if she was honest it ached for the small defenceless baby that was now drifting contently off to sleep in Dulcie’s arms as well.

  Olive looked from Agnes’s anxious face, her eyes filled with tears, to Sally’s, which was so set and yet, at the same time, so shocked, guessing just what both girls would be going through, and why, and decided that for now it was best that she took control.

  ‘I think that the thing to do right now would be for the baby to stay here.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Sally and Agnes spoke together and then looked at one another.

  ‘Alice isn’t Olive’s responsibility, Agnes,’ said Sally determinedly, ‘and she isn’t going to be mine either. If Callum wants to keep her then it’s up to him to sort something out, not bring her here to me. How can I take care of her, even if I wanted to, which I don’t? I’m a nurse. I’m working. There’s nowhere for her to sleep. She’s barely got any clothes or nappies. No, no, she—’

  ‘As to that, Sally,’ Olive stopped her, ‘I’m sure between us all we can manage to find the time to look after her. For now she can sleep in my room, as I agree that it’s not possible for you to look after her with the shifts you work. I’ll turn out a drawer and we’ll make her a bed in that. I’ll have a word with Mrs Windle about sorting out some clothes for her. I dare say that Callum will come back for her as soon as he can. He obviously cares about her. No, Sally,’ Olive insisted firmly when Sally looked as though she was about to protest again, ‘I do know how you feel about … about what happened, and your father, but right now you’re in no fit state to make any kind of proper decision. Not after the news you’ve just had,’ Olive told her gently.

  To her disgust, Sally discovered that she badly wanted to cry. That was the trouble when people were kind and nice to you when you had to harden your heart against those emotions. They were too much for you to bear. Her father, dead. It shocked her that she should feel so much pain and such an acute sense of loss, when since she had discovered his relationship with Morag, she had cut herself off from him emotionally. She didn’t want to feel like this, just as she didn’t want to feel that raw ache inside her that Agnes’s emotional outburst had caused her. The baby – she refused to use her name – would be far better off in an orphanage and with people who could look after her properly. She could write to Callum, care of the navy, telling him where the baby was and he could then make his own arrangements for her. He had had no right to barge into her life in the way he had and dump the child on her. George would agree with her about that.

  George. For the first time since she had seen Callum standing in the doorway holding Alice, Sally realised what problems the arrival of her half-sister were going to cause her. George, after all, knew nothing about Alice’s existence, never mind the events that had led to Sally’s alienation from her father.

  ‘Dulcie, can you keep hold of the baby – does she have a name?’

  ‘Alice.’

  Sally looked at Dulcie as they both spoke the name together. She hadn’t intended to say it but somehow she had.

  ‘Oh, how pretty!’ Olive smiled. ‘If you can keep hold of Alice whilst I go upstairs and sort out somewhere for her to sleep that will be a help.’

  ‘All right,’ Dulcie agreed, ‘but I can’t sit here with her for long. I’ve got me toenails to varnish.’

  Upstairs in her bedroom Olive removed a drawer from the mahogany chest and took the clothes from it. They smelled of lavender from the lavender seeds she had sewn into small scraps of cotton in the autumn after the flowers had finished flowering in the garden.

  They could sew together some of the blanket squares the girls knitted in their spare time for the homeless to make a baby blanket, and a sheet folded over with a pillow underneath it would do for Alice’s bed until they could sort out something else. Olive knew that she couldn’t force Sally to keep the baby if she didn’t want to, but she had to admit that, like Agnes, she didn’t like the thought of her being handed over to an orphanage. Not when there was a houseful of women who could quite easily accommodate the needs of one very-much-in-need baby. Poor little thing. She must be feeling so confused, wondering who they were and what had happened to her mummy and daddy. Olive thought of how she would have felt as a young mother at the thought of her Tilly being orphaned at Alice’s age, and handed over to strangers to bring up. The surge of protective maternal anxiety that filled her confirmed to her that, in insisting to Sally that Alice stayed, she was doing the right thing.

  Of course, the situation had to be explained to Tilly and Drew when they came in, Tilly insisting on giving Alice her final feed of the night, once Drew had gone, under instruction from Dulcie. Agnes, well used to looking after the little ones from her time in the orphanage, volunteered to change her nappy, and did so expertly, whilst Olive kept a keen eye on what was going on.

  ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ Sally apologised to Olive when Olive went up to her bedroom with a cup of tea for her.

  ‘It isn’t your fault, Sally. How are you feeling?’ Olive asked gently. ‘It must have been a dreadful shock – to hear about your father.’

  ‘I … I didn’t think that I’d care, but I keep thinking about the way he was when I was growing up.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘I know you mean to be kind, Olive, but she can’t stay here. I don’t think I could bear it.’

  ‘It won’t be for ever, Sally. Callum is bound to come back for her.’

  ‘That could be months.’

  Olive patted her gently on the arm. ‘I do understand how you feel.’

  ‘How I feel? That’s the whole problem. I don’t want to feel anything. I keep seeing him – my father – inside my head, teaching me to ride my first bicycle. I was so happy then …’

  ‘You were lucky to have such loving parents, Sally,’ Olive told her, opening the bedroom door to leave.

  Olive didn’t say any more, but Sally knew what she had been hinting at. She had had a happy childhood, but Alice wouldn’t, especially if Sally insisted on sending her to an orphanage. But what else could she practically do? And what was she going to say to George?

  But then why did she need to say anything? After all he didn’t even know that Alice existed, and since she was going to send her to an orphanage there was no need for him to know, was there? It made good sense all round. She couldn’t keep Alice, even if she wanted to do so. She worked shifts, and she lived in one room, which she rented. Olive was a kind and a generous landlady but even if she, Sally, wanted to keep her half-sister, she couldn’t imagine that Olive or the other girls were going to be happy about having a baby around all the time, never mind be obliged to get involved in her care.

  No, handing her over to the authorities was definitely the right and the best thing to do – for everyone concerned.

  In her own bed later
that night, lying in the darkness, Agnes said a special prayer, begging that little Alice wouldn’t be abandoned as she had been. They had been kind enough to her at the orphanage, but that hadn’t stopped her always yearning for a family of her own, and since she had come here to number 13 she had realised even more just what she had missed out on. She would have loved to have had a mother like Olive, a loving, kind wise mother, who had loved her as much as Olive loved Tilly.

  It had only been since she had come here and since she had met Ted that she had realised what maternal love actually was. Ted’s mother loved her children every bit as much as Olive loved Tilly, even if Ted’s mother’s love for her son and her two daughters was a fiercely protective kind of love, which seemed to want to exclude Agnes from its magic circle.

  Being orphaned was dreadfully lonely, more lonely than anyone who wasn’t orphaned could ever imagine. So lonely that you could feel as though you were the only person in the world, even when you lived in an orphanage packed with other children. There was a coldness, an emptiness about not having anyone of your own, an envy of the happiness of families when you saw them together, a longing to be able to creep close to the warmth of their family life and an awareness that you never ever could because you didn’t belong there.

  Poor little Alice. Right now she knew nothing of this, but one day, if Sally handed her over to an orphanage, she would. But then Sally didn’t understand what being orphaned was like. She did, though, and if she and Ted had already been married she’d have taken the baby in herself, Agnes thought sadly.

  ‘You seem a bit preoccupied. Is everything OK?’

  Sally nodded in response to her fellow sister’s concerned question. ‘We’ve got a full operating list for tonight already and I suspect that we’ll have more emergencies coming in if there’s more bombing tonight.’

  It was the truth, and she hoped she was professional enough to give her full attention to the patients who needed it. But she also couldn’t deny that her mind was also on what had happened at number 13 earlier. She couldn’t possibly keep the child, even if she had wanted to, which she didn’t. But Agnes’s reaction to her announcement that Alice would have to go into an orphanage had touched a nerve within her that she hadn’t realised existed.

  And then there was George. It had been one thing not to tell him about her father when he had not been part of her life in any way, nor was likely to be, but now his death and the arrival of Alice complicated things.

  Her father’s death: his burial in a mass grave, because so many had been killed at once by the blitz in Liverpool. Sally closed her eyes to squeeze back her tears. Why should she want to cry for him, though, when she had lost the father she had once believed she had had over two years ago? Confusing, irrational, overemotional thoughts were threatening her normal self-control, and Sally didn’t like that. She liked her life to be ordered and structured, calm and uncomplicated. She didn’t care for drama and too much emotion.

  She looked at the watch pinned to her uniform pocket and then went in search of one of her two juniors to ask her to fetch some cleaning fluid for the equipment trolley, before making her way to the theatre to make sure that everything was in order ahead of the first operation of her shift.

  SEVENTEEN

  On her way to her room Tilly paused on the landing as she heard her mother talking to Alice through the open door, as she walked up and down her bedroom floor with her.

  ‘She was crying, poor little mite,’ Olive told Tilly when she saw her. ‘And no wonder. It must give her a fright when she wakes up in such unfamiliar surroundings and with so many strange faces around her.’

  ‘Do you think that Sally really will put her in an orphanage?’ Tilly asked, unable to resist smiling coaxingly at Alice’s tear-dampened face.

  ‘I don’t know, Tilly. Are you and Drew going out after the football’s over?’ she asked, changing the subject. The truth was that in the few short days Alice had been with them, Olive had grown very attached to her. Once Olive had explained the situation to Audrey Windle and the other members of their local WVS group, they had all rallied round, and now Alice had a pram, a high chair, a playpen, several sets of clothes, some nappies, and a whole host of cooing admirers who were already offering to babysit, should their services be required.

  ‘Seeing her reminds me of how much I want to be a grandmother,’ Mrs Morrison had told Olive ruefully, ‘and how much, at the same time, I don’t want our Ian rushing into marriage whilst he’s still in uniform.’

  Hearing her WVS friend saying that had made Olive feel better about her refusal to allow Tilly to get married. But just like Mrs Morrison, she had discovered that Alice had made her realise how much she would enjoy being a grandmother – when the time was right.

  ‘We aren’t going out. Drew said that he’d probably end up going to the pub with the friend he’s going to the match with, but he would come round afterwards. We decided London’s bound to be busy with so many football supporters up for the FA Cup. I hope we don’t have an air raid tonight.’

  Alice was drifting off to sleep in Tilly’s mother’s arms. The arms that had held her as a baby, only then her mother had been very young.

  ‘It must have been hard for you, Mum, without Dad, and having me,’ said Tilly abruptly.

  Olive looked at her. They had been at odds for so long that Tilly’s comment had caught her off guard.

  ‘Did you ever … did you ever wish that you hadn’t had me? I mean, it would have been easier for you—’

  ‘No. Tilly, you must never think that,’ Olive protested, the sudden movement she made making Alice give a small baby protest before Olive settled her back comfortably in her arms.

  ‘Well, I thought because you don’t want me to get married that perhaps it was because you regretted being left with me.’

  ‘Oh, no, Tilly, never that. You were my strength, my reason for going on after I lost your dad,’ Olive sighed. ‘I know you think I’m being unfair and unkind in refusing to let you and Drew marry until you’re older, but I promise you that I am doing it for your sake.’

  ‘When Dad was sick,’ Tilly persisted, ‘did you worry then about him not being there and how you’d feel?’

  ‘I couldn’t believe it when the doctors told us. I suppose I didn’t want to believe it. None of us did, even though we could all see how much weaker your dad was getting. Of course, we were living with your grandparents, and it was your grandmother who took charge and who did most of the nursing. I had you to look after, and he was her son, after all.’

  Tilly tried to imagine how she would feel if she was prevented from spending that last precious time with a dying Drew – if she was relegated to the role of onlooker. She would hate it, she knew.

  ‘That must have been hard for you.’

  ‘Well, yes, it was, but I had you to look after as well, and your grandmother loved your dad so much. I’d hate you to be in the position that I was, Tilly, not wanted and even perhaps a little resented and blamed for someone’s ill health. Your grandmother wanted your father to herself, you see. He was her son, her child. She felt that marrying me had been too much for his health.’

  ‘I worry so much about something happening to Drew,’ Tilly admitted. ‘He says it’s silly. He says that nothing happens to reporters unless they’re reporting from the front line, but I can’t help it. Whenever he isn’t with me I worry. Ever since that night when the incendiaries came down and I thought he was going to die … I don’t feel frightened of the bombs for myself. Just for Drew. I’d rather we were both killed together than live without him.’

  ‘Tilly …’

  ‘I can’t help it, Mum. I never realised that love could be like this and that I could feel so afraid. All I want is to be with Drew.’

  ‘Marriage wouldn’t take away your fear, Tilly,’ Olive told her gently.

  ‘No, but I’d have my memories, memories of being his wife.’ Tilly’s face went pink and Olive knew that she herself was colouring up a bit too.
They both knew that Tilly meant memories of how it felt to be held close to the warm naked body of the man you loved, after he had loved you. Jim had been a gentle careful lover – when he had been able to be her lover. After Tilly’s birth, when his health had started to get worse, the sight of him crying silently in their shared bed when he felt too weak to be a proper husband to her had hurt Olive far more than his inability to make love to her.

  ‘I just hope that Sally doesn’t put Alice in an orphanage, Ted. She’s ever such a lovely little thing. As good as gold, hardly ever cries except when she wants her bottle. She’s settled in so well at number 13, and when you think of what she’s been through …’

  ‘Now don’t you go upsetting yourself,’ Ted urged Agnes, recognising that she wasn’t far from tears as they walked hand in hand towards Leicester Square and the Odeon in the early evening light. They weren’t the only ones out and about: the city was busy with people making the most of the new Double Summer Time.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Agnes admitted. ‘I can’t bear the thought of poor little Alice growing up thinking that she’s got no one of her own and that no one loves her.’

  Ted squeezed Agnes’s hand. He knew how much her own abandonment on the steps of the orphanage still hurt her.

  ‘Well, you were the one who suggested coming to see a show instead of going dancing,’ Dulcie reminded Wilder when he complained that the theatre just off Shaftsbury Avenue, in which they were now taking their seats, was small and ‘nowhere near as good as anything you’d get on Broadway in New York’.

  Dulcie felt that if anyone had the right to complain it should be her. After all, she already suspected that the only reason Wilder has initially chosen this particular review show was because the newspaper advertisement had claimed it had the highest kicking chorus line in London.

  With the house lights still on, Dulcie could see that the red plush seats were faded, but then what wasn’t looking the worse for wear in London these days?