Home for Christmas

by Annie Groves

  ‘How is Mrs Long, Mum?’ Tilly asked her mother.

  ‘Very low. She took her husband’s death hard, although he was ill for so long, and now that Christopher’s been conscripted to such a dangerous service, well, she has a lot of time alone to get anxious about him.’

  They were all silent for a couple of minutes, the silence broken when Tilly told her mother, ‘Drew’s photographs are ever so good, Mum. Look at this one. It’s St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street.’

  ‘They call it the journalists’ church,’ Drew informed Olive earnestly, whilst she managed to keep a straight face as though this were news to her.

  ‘I’m planning to photograph the whole of Fleet Street, air raids permitting,’ Drew enthused. ‘I’ve already done one of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. I did an article on that for back home, writing about how Mark Twain and Charles Dickens had both drunk there, just as reporters are doing now. You hear some fascinating stories. I’m writing down as many as I can. One day when I’d like to write a book about Fleet Street and its history.’

  ‘Oh, I do envy you doing something so interesting and exciting,’ Tilly sighed.

  ‘Well, you’re welcome to come with me,’ Drew offered, and looked uncertainly at Olive. ‘That’s if your mom agrees.’

  ‘Oh, can I, Mum?’ Tilly begged.

  Olive’s instinctive reaction was to refuse. She didn’t want her precious Tilly being exposed to any more danger than she needed to be. And that included the company of handsome young men. But then Olive reminded herself that Drew was a polite and obviously well-brought-up boy; a boy who would treat her precious daughter with proper respect.

  ‘Very well,’ she agreed, ‘providing you both promise me that you will make for a shelter the minute an air-raid siren goes off.’

  As much as she wanted to protect Tilly from every kind of danger, Olive knew that her daughter had reached an age when she must start to learn to be responsible for herself. Maternal instinct told her that she could trust Drew to take care of Tilly and make sure that she didn’t take risks, and with so much excitement and hope shining in Tilly’s giveaway expression, what could she do other than agree?

  ‘Oh, Mum, thank you,’ Tilly beamed, flinging her arms round Olive’s neck and giving her a fierce hug, before turning back to Drew to demand excitedly, ‘I can’t wait. When do we start?’

  ‘Next week,’ Drew answered. ‘We can discuss when properly after church on Sunday.’

  As he spoke, Dulcie, who had been glancing through the photographs without much interest, suddenly focused on one of them that depicted five young men, all wearing leather flying jackets, their hair greased back, big confident smiles on their faces.

  ‘Who are these?’ she asked Drew.

  ‘Them? Oh, they’re some American fly guys who’ve gotten tired of standing on the sidelines of this war and have come over here to form their own voluntary group of pilots. They’ve called themselves the Eagles, after the Eagle emblem on the American flag. I bumped into them at a reception at the American Embassy.’

  ‘You went to a reception at the American Embassy?’ Tilly queried, round-eyed.

  ‘Oh, I was only there as a goffer for one of the big American newshounds,’ Drew told her, ‘and when they saw me with my camera these guys asked me to take their photograph.’

  Dulcie gave him an arch look, and then demanded with a forwardness that made Olive sigh inwardly, ‘Do you know what I think, Tilly? I think we should ask Drew to join us when we next go to the Hammersmith Palais and bring his Eagle friends along with him, introduce them to a bit of proper London social life.’

  ‘Now, Dulcie,’ Olive protested, ‘you’ll embarrass Drew making suggestions like that. I dare say he barely knows these young men.’

  After one look at the photograph Olive hoped that he didn’t know them very well. Each and every one of them had that look in his eye that immediately put any mother of a young dancing-age daughter on her guard. But it was too late for her to voice any stronger arguments, because Drew was already responding to Dulcie’s suggestion with alacrity and enthusiasm, assuring her that his fellow Americans would love to go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais.

  ‘We’ll go this Saturday then,’ Dulcie told him promptly. ‘You can meet us there with your Eagle pals.’

  Shortly after that Drew took his leave of them, Olive escorting him to the front door, where she thanked him again for the Hershey bars.

  He was a very pleasant and personable young man, but Olive was still thankful that Tilly only seemed interested in him as a friend and wasn’t showing any signs of having the same kind of crush on him she had once had on Dulcie’s brother.

  Being back at work was proving to be not much fun at all, Dulcie acknowledged as she and Lizzie sat together in Selfridges’ staff canteen having their lunch, and, like everyone else, keeping an ear open for the air-raid alert.

  Dulcie’s leg ached from standing behind her counter all morning, and since the Christmas rush hadn’t begun yet, they hadn’t had many customers coming in even on the ground floor. The only one Dulcie had had to serve had been a very smart middle-aged woman with a cold, refined accent, who had complained when Dulcie had not been able to provide her with her favourite scent and the shade of lipstick she wanted.

  ‘Come along, girl,’ she had told Dulcie angrily. ‘I’m a regular customer here. I demand to see the manager.’

  Of course, Dulcie had been obliged to summon the floor manager, who had looked at Dulcie as though he blamed her for the customer’s demanding manner.

  ‘Everything’s changed,’ Dulcie complained to Lizzie as she spooned up her brown Windsor soup without much enthusiasm. ‘And not for the better. I’m surprised we’re getting any customers in at all, with those old battleaxes who have replaced Arlene and the others.’

  She might not have liked Arlene, but Dulcie liked the middle-aged women, who had taken the place of the pretty young girls who had once manned the makeup counters, even less.

  ‘People are bound to stop coming in to ask for makeup when we have to keep telling them we haven’t got any.’

  ‘There’s plenty to be had on the black market,’ Dulcie pointed out.

  ‘Yes, and most of it has either been brought in illegally by someone working on one of the convoys that come across the Atlantic, or it’s second-hand and looted, so I’ve heard,’ Lizzie told her. ‘Watch out, Mrs Grange is heading this way.’

  Mrs Grange was in charge of the roster of fire-watching duties, which every employee was supposed to undertake, going up onto the roof to watch for bombs and then warn the fire prevention officers.

  ‘Ah, Miss Simmonds,’ Mrs Grange, announced coming to stand next to Dulcie. ‘Good. Now I’ve put you down for fire-watching duties on Thursday nights, starting this evening.’

  ‘I can’t do fire watching,’ Dulcie refused immediately. ‘I’m not allowed to go climbing stairs. Not yet.’

  Mrs Grange pursed her lips. ‘Your plaster’s off, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but my leg muscles are still weak. I’ve been told not to climb any stairs,’ Dulcie fibbed without any compunction. ‘It might give way if I was to, see. Of course, I’d like to do my duty and everything but I wouldn’t be much good to anyone if I was to go up onto the roof and then my leg gave way and I wasn’t able to tell anyone there’d been an incendiary landed. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a law against me doing it.’

  ‘I see. And how long do you expect it to be before you are able to climb stairs without there being any risk of your leg giving way?’ Mrs Grange asked grimly.

  ‘There’s no knowing. It will have to be up to the Hospital to say. Of course, with me sharing my lodgings with a nurse, at least I’ve got her there to keep a lookout for me, if it should.

  ‘Did you see her face?’ Dulcie asked Lizzie with glee once they were on their own again.

  ‘She won’t let you off easily a second time, Dulcie,’ Lizzie warned. ‘She didn’t like what you said to her, anyo
ne could see that.’

  ‘Well, that’s her problem, not mine. Like I said, I’ve been told not to go climbing too many stairs,’ Dulcie told Lizzie virtuously.

  ‘Too many. You told her you aren’t supposed to climb any at all, and I know for a fact that you climb them back at your lodgings.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s different, ’cos I’ve got a nurse there to help me, haven’t I?’ Dulcie insisted, refusing to be outdone.

  ‘Anyway,’ she changed the subject, ‘have you heard any more about what’s happened to Miss Stuck-up Smarty Pants’ husband that was shot down by the Germans?’

  ‘Mrs Stuck-up Smarty Pants now,’ Lizzie pointed out sternly, giving in and laughing when Dulcie pulled a face. ‘I don’t know any more than I’ve already told you, and I’m not likely to now Arlene’s left, although she did say before she went—’

  ‘What?’ Dulcie demanded. Unexpectedly she discovered that her heart had started to beat faster, and she had to struggle not to place her hand over it. It was just because Lizzie was winding her up by being aggravating, that was all, Dulcie assured herself.

  Lizzie took a deep breath and leaned closer, to tell her with a purposefully significant look, ‘Well, I’m not one for gossip, or talking about others behind their backs – you know that, Dulcie – but from what Arlene let slip it seems there was words spoken between Lydia and her David, before he went off and got himself shot down.’

  ‘What do you mean – words was spoken?’ Dulcie could have shaken Lizzie, she was so irritated by the way she was drawing out her story.

  ‘It seems that Lydia never wanted him to join the RAF in the first place and she reckoned he could have stayed out of uniform if he’d really wanted to. I just hope that my Ralph’s leave doesn’t get cancelled. This will be the first time I’ve seen him since we got married,’ Lizzie finished, reverting to a subject much closer to her heart than Lydia and her marriage.

  Dulcie didn’t make any response. Everything Lizzie had told her confirmed that she had been justified in not liking Lydia, and that David had been a fool to marry her.

  ‘Sally, have you got a minute? Only there’s something I want to tell you.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just finished my shift.’

  George looked both anxious and elated, his brown hair standing up in spikes as though he’d been pushing his hand through it, his tie slightly askew, and his face flushed. It caught Sally off guard to acknowledge just how pleased she actually was to see him.

  George had caught up with her just as she was about to go off duty, coming flying down the corridor after her, calling her name in a way that Matron would have frowned upon.

  They’d had a busy shift in the operating theatre. The bombing raids might have eased in intensity, but they were still continuing. People were still being dug out of the wreckage and coming into Barts, needing surgery on their wounds. They’d operated on a young fireman this morning, removing the leg that had been a mangled when a wall had fallen on him.

  Remembering now, Sally closed her eyes for a moment. His wife was expecting their first child and that child would now have a father who might never be able to work again. Certainly not as a fireman. Instinctively she moved slightly closer to George as if for comfort.

  ‘Well, in that case, if you’ve got time, how about a walk in Hyde Park?’ George suggested hopefully.

  Hyde Park had become one of their favourite places.

  ‘I’ll get my cloak and meet you outside Casualty,’ Sally agreed.

  She was as quick as she could be but, even so, George was pacing the ground in an uncharacteristic manner when she rejoined him, his head bare and his hair ruffled by the damp November wind.

  ‘Where’s your hat?’ Sally chided him. ‘You’ll be cold without it.’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone else must have picked it up, thinking it was theirs. You daren’t leave anything long in the junior doctors’ house. If you do it’s bound to disappear.’ George’s voice was rueful, and Sally smiled up at him as she tucked her arm through his.

  Something was on his mind, she could see that, but as they waited for a bus outside the hospital, Sally guessed that George would want to wait until they were in the park to tell her what it was.

  Initially it had been strange to see so many different coloured buses on the London streets, sent by various local authorities that could spare them to make up for the number of buses the city had lost to German bombs. When theirs came along, though, it was a traditional red London bus with a chirpy clippie who warned them that there was only standing room.

  ‘When is there ever anything else?’ George asked Sally as they stood together strap-hanging in the gathering gloom of the November afternoon.

  The park, once they reached it, was virtually empty but for half a dozen boys, standing close to some rhododendron bushes, who stepped out into their path to try to beg a cigarette off them, until a park keeper appeared out of the gloom to shoo them away.

  The leaves on the rhododendrons were grey and dusty from the bombings. You could still taste and smell the dust in the air. It seemed to coat everything, its greyness adding to the dull pall of autumn weather that hung over the park, mist shrouding everything. Even the ducks on the Serpentine were huddled together miserably on the bank.

  Eventually they found a bench set far enough away from any others to give them a bit of privacy should anyone appear, and sat down together, George lifting his arm to put it round Sally and pull her close to him.

  ‘You know how much you mean to me, don’t you, Sally?’ he began.

  Sally’s heart started to thump. Was this a prelude to a proposal. If so, she wasn’t ready for it, and wasn’t even sure that she actually wanted it. She liked George – more than liked him – but . . .

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she agreed cautiously, feeling George’s chest expand as he took in a deep breath and then exhaled.

  ‘The thing is . . . Well, the fact is . . . I’ve been offered the chance to go and work under Archie McIndoe, the plastic surgeon. You know that he’s set up a special unit in Sussex to try to help those poor devils who’ve been badly burned – RAF chaps, in the main.’

  ‘I had heard.’

  ‘What he’s doing is real pioneering stuff. It would only be a temporary posting, for six months, but of course it will mean me leaving London for that period. I don’t know what to do.’ He was holding her hand, playing with her fingers through the wool of the gloves that Olive had given her last Christmas.

  Leaving London and leaving her, he meant, Sally thought as she realised that he was not after all going to propose to her. She wasn’t sure now whether she was glad about that or not, even though five minutes ago she had been very sure that she didn’t want him to. What she did know, though, was that the opportunity he had been offered was a testimony to his skill as a doctor.

  ‘You must accept it,’ she told him fiercely. ‘You have to. It’s what you’ve wanted, and a terrific chance, a wonderful compliment to you, George, although you’ll probably try to tell me that it’s because you are both New Zealanders. But I know Archie McIndoe wouldn’t ask for you to be transferred to his staff if he didn’t think you were the right sort and good enough to work with him.’

  ‘It is what I’ve wanted,’ George admitted, looking relieved but still uncertain, ‘but I never thought . . . I didn’t have any idea that this might happen. I hate the thought of us being parted, Sally, especially now when we’re just beginning to get to know one another properly, but—’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Your going to work under Mr McIndoe for six months won’t change things between us. Besides, we did both volunteer to work away from London,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yes, I know, but that would only have been to fill in for someone for a few days here and there.’

  Sally could hear in his voice how torn he was, and that touched something unexpected and tender in her own heart.

  Dear George. He was such a nice, decent, caring person. With Callum she had created
a fantasy inside her youthful head of a man who would be her white knight and who would protect her from all of life’s pain just as her parents had done. But with George she often felt that she was the one who had to protect him. Far from worshipping him silently and from afar, as she had done with Callum, with George she felt that they were properly and truly equals. And she liked that, Sally admitted. She liked the warm steady comfortable feeling that being with him brought her. She liked knowing just how much he thought of her without his having to tell her.

  ‘You’ll have days off and so will I,’ she comforted him.

  ‘Yes.’ He looked relieved and much happier now that he had unburdened his concern. ‘You could come down and see me,’ he told Sally enthusiastically.’ We could have a bit of time together in the country and do some proper walking.’

  ‘In winter?’ Sally laughed. ‘I’ll have you know that I’m strictly a summer walking girl, thank you very much.’

  George was looking euphoric. ‘I can hardly believe it. I can’t wait to write and tell my parents, my father . . .’

  ‘He’ll be very proud of you, George, and justifiably so.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything yet. McIndoe could send me back before I’ve completed my first week.’ George released her hand to spread his own fingers. ‘I don’t know myself if I can do it, Sally.’

  ‘But you want to try, and you must.’

  ‘You are just the best girl any man could have,’ George told her, ‘the very best girl. My girl.’ His voice was thick with emotion as he pulled her towards him.

  ‘George,’ Sally protested, laughing, ‘you can’t kiss me here.’

  ‘Who says?’ he demanded, before silencing her protest with the warm urgent pressure of his mouth on hers.

  It was an emotional moment, an emotional situation for George, she knew. Which was why she didn’t resist beyond tensing a little when his hand cupped her breast beneath the cover of her cloak. It was a pleasant feeling, an intimate warm, close feeling, rather than one that filled her with passion, but then Sally didn’t think that she was the passionate type.