Home for Christmas

by Annie Groves

  ‘As people come in we try to find out their situation and then we divide them into three different queues,’ she explained to Olive. ‘One for people who have lost everything – that’s the hardest queue to deal with, and the longest I’m afraid. Some of them are in such a state that they can barely comprehend what’s happened to them. They need everything: new ration books and papers, somewhere to sleep; food, clothes . . . We explain to them where to go to get their replacement papers, give them a cup of tea and something to eat here, and some clothes. We’re using one of the classrooms to store all our second-hand clothes in. They can go there and be issued with whatever they need, and then we hand them over to the billeting officers at the other end of the hall. We’ve got a fully operational canteen here, with it being a school, so they can get a proper meal, but what we could do with is better washing facilities.’ She pulled a tired face. ‘The local public baths are still operational so we’re sending people down there. It’s all a bit of a muddle, really, but we’re doing our best.

  ‘Some of them come in with the most pitiful stories. There was a woman this morning who never spoke, she simply stared at me, and then another woman who was her neighbour told me that her little girl had run back into the house for her doll just as a bomb struck it. All they found of her was one of her shoes. It really makes you think, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly does,’ Olive agreed quietly as she followed her guide towards the long row of trestle tables behind which the WVS volunteers were seated to deal with the queue as it filed into the building.

  Olive sighed a little when she realised that Nancy had taken the seat next to her. Olive was a peaceable person but Nancy’s acerbic tongue and lack of compassion for others could be a trial at times. They had had words over Olive learning to drive. Nancy hadn’t approved at all, but Olive had stuck to her guns and now she was glad that she had done so.

  The first person Olive dealt with was a young mother with two children clinging to her legs.

  Tired and unkempt-looking, with a thin face and wary eyes, the woman announced immediately, ‘I’m not having you taking the kiddies from me. Not for anything, I’m not. We might have been bombed out but that doesn’t give no one the right to take my kiddies.’ Her voice was high and strained, rising in volume as she spoke.

  ‘Of course you want them to be with you,’ Olive agreed gently. Like their mother, the children looked underfed. Gently she coaxed the mother to give her her name and those of her children.

  ‘And your address?’ she asked patiently.

  ‘We haven’t got no address, not any more. Blown up, it was.’ The woman started to shake.

  ‘You stay here,’ Olive told her. ‘I’m going to go and get you a nice hot cup of tea and some biscuits for the children. And don’t worry, we’ll get everything sorted out for you.’

  ‘You’re too soft by half that’s what you are,’ Nancy chided Olive later when they were having their break.

  ‘I can’t help thinking how I’d feel if I were in their shoes, Nancy,’ Olive replied.

  ‘Well, for all you know we may be soon, if Hitler keeps up this bombing. Not that you’d ever get me coming in somewhere like this, all covered in dust and looking like a scarecrow. Mrs Dawson wasn’t at church again on Sunday,’ she told Olive as they queued together to get tea from the large urn standing on the table in the classroom that had been designated for the volunteers’ tea breaks.

  Automatically Olive delved into her bag for her mug – one soon learned that it helped others if you were as organised as possible – putting it under the tap on the urn to fill it with strong hot tea.

  ‘She’s always kept herself very much to herself,’ Olive reminded her neighbour as she added a dash of milk and then wrapped her hands round the hot mug. It was only September and warm outside – the burning buildings had seen to that – but inside the school there was that lack of warmth that Olive remembered from her own schooldays.

  ‘And who can blame her, with that husband of hers carrying on the way he does with other women?’ Nancy pursed her lips in a disapproving manner whilst Olive gazed at her in astonishment.

  ‘Nancy, what on earth are you saying? Sergeant Dawson is a good husband, and a good man.’

  ‘Well, you would say that, you being taken in by him, but I’ve got eyes in my head. I saw him going into Mrs Long’s house this morning and he didn’t come out again until after the all clear went. What was he doing there all that time, I’d like to know?’

  Olive frowned. She didn’t like argument or quarrels, and she had no idea just why Nancy seemed to have taken so against Sergeant Dawson, but she couldn’t allow her to talk about him in that way.

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ she told her quietly but firmly. ‘I’m surprised at you, Nancy, making such suggestions against Sergeant Dawson. I dare say the reason he was at Mrs Long’s was to make sure she was safely in her Anderson shelter. He probably stayed with her until the all clear had gone out of kindness. You know how nervous Mrs Long is now that she’s widowed, and Christopher’s not always there.’

  ‘Oh yes, we all know about the kind of men who have wives of their own but go round preying on lonely women. Look at the way Sergeant Dawson’s been buttering you up, Olive. I’m surprised at you being taken in by him, I really am. Not that I’m saying that you’d do anything wrong, but like I’ve warned you before, people notice these things and you did spend a lot of time with him when he was giving you those driving lessons. Always up and down the Row, he is, when there’s a pretty girl walking along it.’

  ‘He’s a policeman and our ARP warden,’ Olive pointed out. She was horrified and angry but she had no wish to feed the flames of Nancy’s unkind gossip by seeming to be overprotective of the sergeant. Not for a minute did she believe a word of what Nancy was implying. She’d seen and heard in his expression and his voice Sergeant Dawson’s concern for and loyalty to his wife. He had certainly never once given her any cause to feel uncomfortable in his company.

  The trouble was that in her widowed state, and given Nancy’s turn of mind, she could hardly leap to his defence without potentially making matters worse.

  ‘Of course, it’s up to a wife to make sure her husband doesn’t stray, and that he gets all he needs at home, if you take my meaning, and from what I’ve seen of her, Mrs Dawson doesn’t have much about her.’

  ‘She’s never got over them losing their boy, Nancy. You know that,’ Olive felt obliged to remind the other woman.

  ‘Well, that shouldn’t stop her coming to church, should it? Many a time I’ve been round there to knock on the door and do my Christian duty by her, but never once has she asked me in. And as for him asking me not to call round any more! I’d give a pound to a penny that’s because he doesn’t want her being put to the wise about what he’s up to. ‘

  So that was it, Olive thought. Nancy was offended because Sergeant Dawson had stepped in to protect his wife from her nosiness and she was now trying to get her revenge.

  Olive was glad when they had finished their tea and it was time to return to their work. She just wished she had someone other than Nancy and her spiteful tongue sitting next to her.

  David shot down and injured. Dulcie put down the copy of Picture Post she had gone back to reading, as she stared round Olive’s pretty kitchen without really seeing it. She had meant what she had said to Lizzie about being better off single, Dulcie assured herself. She certainly wasn’t mooning around over David James-Thompson. She had known right from the start that there could never be anything between them, even without David telling her about his snooty mother. And Dulcie hadn’t wanted there to be anything between them. Why should she? She could take her pick of lads, and that was how she liked it. All she’d wanted to do was get her own back on Lydia for being so stuck up about her, by flirting with David, who she’d known immediately found her attractive. Well, she’d done that all right, what with him waiting for her when she’d finished work, and then giving her that expensi
ve vanity case she’d fallen in love with. Of course, she’d made it plain to him that she wasn’t the sort to do what she shouldn’t with any man, never mind one who was married, but that hadn’t stopped him trying to persuade her – or kiss her.

  Dulcie got to her feet, only to sit down again. She kept forgetting she wasn’t really mobile. What she needed was a good night out at the Hammersmith Palais, where she could dance and flirt and have a bit of a laugh. Dulcie wasn’t given to introspection or examining her own thoughts or feelings. Her confidence in herself was absolute and inviolate, because it had to be if she was to armour herself against her mother’s preference for her sister, so it was easy as well as necessary for her to put the sudden feeling of being helpless to do anything down to her broken ankle, and the way it restricted her movements, and to blame that for those feelings rather than the news about David’s accident. The plain fact was that this war was a ruddy nuisance, Dulcie thought to herself, and they could well do without it.

  * * *

  ‘I just hope we don’t have another air-raid warning before we finish work this afternoon,’ Clara, who worked with Tilly in the Lady Almoner’s office, sighed to Tilly as they sat side by side filling in forms for the influx of patients the bombings had brought. ‘It was all stop and start on the train getting to work this morning, and my mum will be thinking the worst if I’m late home. She was going to help me re-do my perm tonight. My hair is as straight as a die without it. You don’t know how lucky you are to have them curls of yours, Tilly.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think that if you had to brush them,’ Tilly assured her fellow worker. Then both of them were grimacing as the wail of the air-raid siren began, quickly reaching for their bags before hurrying to join the trudge down to the basement hospital shelters.

  Tilly was still thinking about what Kit had told her that morning, as they made their way along the corridor, and then down the stairs – it was forbidden to use the lift during an air raid – and feeling sorry for him. Secretly she would have liked to have played a more exciting role in the war herself, but dealing with unexploded bombs was more than exciting it was dangerous and surely the very last occupation suitable for someone of Kit’s slightly nervous and defensive temperament.

  ‘Three more warnings we’ve had today, and one of them was a false alarm,’ Dulcie complained to Olive and Sally as the three of them sat round the kitchen table drinking the tea Sally had made before she left for her night shift at the hospital.

  ‘At least we’ve got gas, electricity and water here. There was chaos at the rest centre this afternoon when the water went off. Oh, and I heard that Buckingham Palace was bombed today, twice,’ Olive told them, ‘but the King and Queen are all right. How does your ankle feel, Dulcie?’

  ‘I’m all itchy,’ Dulcie told her.

  ‘That’s the plaster,’ Sally told her knowledgably, adding in a no-nonsense voice, ‘I hope you’re still wiggling your toes every hour or so, like I told you to do.’

  ‘Yes, Nurse,’ Dulcie responded with a grin and a cheeky look, before sighing, ‘I’d give anything for a proper bath.’ She’d been told not to get the plaster wet under any circumstances and was having to make do with a soaped flannel and a good scrub.

  Itchy and bored, by the look of her, Olive thought sympathetically, Dulcie wasn’t the stay-at-home sort.

  ‘Tilly and Agnes will be going to their St John Ambulance class tonight – why don’t you go with them? There’ll be a lot of young people there and it will be more fun for you than staying here,’ Olive suggested.

  Dulcie opened her mouth to tell her that attending a St John Ambulance class was not her idea of fun, and then closed it again. Olive meant well, she admitted, and at least it would get her out.

  There was a large public shelter not far from the hall where the classes were held, so Olive had no fears about the girls going.

  ‘I’d better get on with tea. Agnes and Tilly will be back soon. It will have to be fried Spam fritters tonight with cold boiled potatoes, just in case we get an air-raid alert before I’ve managed to get it ready.’

  ‘I’d better go,’ Sally announced. ‘I want to leave a bit of extra time so that I’m not late going on duty.’

  Sally had always taken her work seriously, but since Matron had told her that she was planning to promote her to the rank of Sister Theatre Sally had been determined to repay Matron’s faith in her. She wanted to succeed for herself, but most of all because she felt that it was something she could do for her late mother: a way of repaying all the love her mother had given her, and of showing the world the gifts her mother had passed on to her. Not that Sally would ever have voiced those emotions and thoughts to anyone – that just wasn’t her way.

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Olive agreed as she opened her store cupboard to remove a tin of Spam. ‘There were yellow “diversion” notices on so many roads today that I thought I’d never get us back from the rest centre.’ She paused. ‘Those poor people queuing there, I felt so sorry for them. Some of them were saying that they’d rather trek out to Epsom Forest every night than stay in the city, and others are talking about going down to Kent, to the accommodation they use when they go hop picking.’

  Pulling on her cloak, Sally headed for the front door, calling out from the hall as she did so, ‘Don’t worry if I’m late back in the morning. If there’s a raid overnight I may end up having to stay over.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Olive called back, slicing the Spam, ready to fry it up, her face breaking into a relieved smile as she heard Tilly exchanging greetings with Sally in the hall.

  ‘It’s me, Mum,’ Tilly called, coming into the kitchen. ‘We were given permission to leave early because of the bomb damage making it difficult for people to get trains and buses,’ she explained. She kissed Olive’s cheek before removing her outdoor clothes, taking her hat and coat back into the hallway to hang up.

  ‘Dulcie’s feeling bored, cooped up here all day so I suggested that she goes to St John Ambulance with you tonight,’ Olive told her daughter as she removed a bowl of cold boiled potatoes from one of the shelves in her small narrow larder.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Tilly agreed, smiling at Dulcie, ‘although we’ll have to make sure that everyone knows you’ve got a real plaster on your ankle so that no one tries to take it off.’

  ‘Get that jar of relish out of the cupboard for me, will you, please, Tilly? Agnes shouldn’t be long now,’ Olive said, putting the bowl of potatoes on the oilcloth-covered table.

  ‘I saw Kit this morning, Mum,’ said Tilly, doing as she was asked. ‘And guess what? He’s joining the bomb disposal lot.’

  ‘What, him? He’d run a mile if he heard a firework go off,’ Dulcie scoffed.

  ‘Oh dear, his mother will be distraught,’ Olive sighed sympathetically, ignoring Dulcie’s unkind comment. ‘I must go round and see her. It can’t be easy for her, now she’s by herself. Oh, good, that will be Agnes now,’ she announced as she heard the front door open.

  Agnes forced a smile as she walked into the kitchen. She’d seen Ted very briefly for only a few snatched minutes when he’d arrived at work, but he hadn’t said anything to her about his mother other than that she hadn’t liked sleeping in the underground, but that he was trying to persuade her to come back because he felt it was safer for them. Agnes hadn’t mentioned her fears that his mother might not have liked her because that seemed selfish when Ted already had so much to worry about, but she couldn’t help worrying, all the same.

  Within fifteen minutes of Agnes’s arrival they were all sitting down to their evening meal of Spam fritters, their hotness making up for the coldness of the potatoes, and Olive’s home-made relish adding some flavour to the blandness.

  For pudding there were stewed apples from the apple tree in the garden, and custard followed by a fresh pot of tea, whilst they listened to the news on the wireless. Then it was time for the girls to clear the table and wash up before Tilly and Agnes went upstairs to change into their St John Ambulan
ce uniforms.

  Knowing the girls would be out, Olive had volunteered to be on WVS duty herself during the evening, at their own local church hall, manning the tea urn, which provided welcome refreshment for all those in the area who worked in the emergency services.

  By Sunday morning after church, after a Saturday of almost nonstop day-and-night bombing, people’s sombre and often exhausted expressions showed what they had been through.

  Even so, Tilly was making an effort, wearing her best coat, with its pretty velvet collar and cuffs, the rich darkness of the fabric setting off the equally rich darkness of the curls escaping from her hat – trimmed up with a new ribbon and a flower Olive had made from some spare scraps of fabric from her last year’s new coat.

  While Tilly looked like a young girl on the brink of womanhood, Dulcie was wearing a far more ‘grown-up’ outfit. Her coat was ‘pretend’ Persian lamb cut in a dashing A-line, the dark grey fabric complimented by a small stand-up black collar and deep turned-back black cuffs. The coat had pockets concealed in its seams, which allowed Dulcie to slip her hands into them to keep them warm, but she had already told the other girls that she had her heart set on a black muff to finish off her outfit, if she could pick one up cheaply somewhere. Where Tilly’s hat was neat and pretty, Dulcie’s, in the same fabric as her coat, was set on her blond curls at a rakish angle.

  The leaves on the trees close to the vicarage and the church hall were starting to fall, but their rich colours had been lost, dulled by the ever-present brick dust and ash in the air.

  Tilly had just been trying to cheer up Christopher Long, without any success, and was on her way back to join her mother, Agnes and Dulcie when someone tapped her on the arm.