Wartime Sweethearts

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘Get on with you,’ snapped Ruby, giving him a playful slap. ‘Anyway, Dad’s here, so the tall handsome man will have to make it another night. Now go on. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll be fine.’

  Frances came hurtling down the stairs. ‘Wait for me!’

  Charlie had tried to dissuade their cousin from coming, and Ruby had a good notion why. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Gilda and it worried her. Gilda was married and had two children. She told herself he was just being kind, but somehow she wasn’t convinced. Still, at least having Frances tagging along would keep things in check for both Charlie and her sister and her Canadian beau.

  The living accommodation above the bakery took on a strange echo once everyone had gone. The silence was interrupted by her father coming out of his bedroom. She noticed he’d changed into a clean shirt and pullover.

  She did consider asking him where he was going or telling him he looked nice, but didn’t.

  Purposefully he picked up a bundle of leeks wrapped in newspaper from the table. Normally they would still be muddy from the garden, but she’d noticed him washing them off beneath the cold tap in the kitchen.

  He paused before leaving. ‘I’m just taking over this bunch of leeks for Mrs Hicks. Won’t be long.’

  Ruby smiled to herself. She couldn’t blame him for seeking company of his own age; he’d been alone a long time, dedicating his life to bringing up his children.

  The door closed behind him and once again she was aware of the echoing silence and the warmth of the ovens captured in the floor and walls.

  She listened until she was quite sure she was entirely alone. Laying aside her note book where she scribbled down recipes, she headed for the cellar.

  Her breath steamed into the cellar air, easily seen in the light of the torch she was forced to use, the cellar having no electricity supply.

  Although chilly, the cellar was dry. First she moved the box of mushrooms, though only after checking that a new crop had come through following her cropping them two or three days ago.

  Moving the box of mushrooms exposed the airtight bin. So far it had served to prevent the sugar from becoming damp.

  Ruby had brought a two-pound sugar bag down with her plus a large teaspoon. Setting the lamp to one side, she prepared to fill the sugar bag.

  After opening the bin she dipped in the teaspoon and gradually spooned the sugar into the bag until it was about three-quarters full. So far Mary hadn’t questioned the fact that they’d hardly taken any sugar for household purposes from the firm that supplied the bakery.

  Back in the bakery she rolled out pastry then took out the jar of chutney she’d made from apples and sultanas. Before doing anything else with it, she spooned it into a bowl, added extra sugar, tasted it and decided another spoonful wouldn’t go amiss. One more taste. Lovely. It was just right.

  With the swift skill of somebody who’s done it a hundred times before, she took a palette knife and spread the pastry with the sweet chutney, rolled the pastry over and over until it resembled a Swiss roll – which it was – though her own special recipe.

  Once that was done, she covered it with greaseproof paper and set it beside the bread oven for baking, though not until the last batch of bread had been baked.

  There were still some people who bought ready-baked pastries, though only when the price was right. She decided that at a penny a slice, anyone could afford a piece and make their own custard to pour over it.

  Stan Sweet was surprised at himself. He’d never realised he’d been lonely and had never wanted to alter his situation until he’d become more neighbourly with Bettina Hicks.

  They had a lot in common of course, both having lost their respective partners and both getting on in years. Mrs Hicks’s brother lived in Canada and her daughter lived in South Africa.

  ‘They couldn’t be more far-flung if they tried,’ she’d said ruefully to him while leaning on her stick to pour him a second glass of brandy.

  Stan felt the brandy burning the back of his throat. ‘They only belong to you temporary,’ he said to her. ‘Kids that is. You sacrifice the years to take care of them, but at the end of it they fly away. I hadn’t really faced up to that until now, though I don’t mind telling you I am a bit afraid of what might happen to them. I lost a brother during the last war and another once it was over. I remember my mother and my father crying for nights on end. My father tried to pretend he didn’t cry, but he did. Still …’

  He heaved a big sigh between drinking brandy and puffing on his pipe. He’d expected to feel a trifle guilty to spend time with Mrs Hicks, as though he were being unfaithful to Sarah – which he couldn’t be. Sarah was dead. Had been for years.

  ‘They’re gone,’ she said suddenly. ‘I don’t mean the children have gone, I meant your Sarah and my Alf. They’re gone and all we can do is make the best of it.’

  Stan looked at her, noticing the warm smile, the blue eyes twinkling like stars behind her glasses. Luckily he rarely resorted to glasses except for reading. He was one of the lucky ones, but who was to say that in time he wouldn’t need to wear glasses for his day-to-day activities.

  ‘Tempus fugit,’ she said suddenly. ‘Time flies.’

  He nodded. No matter his promise to his wife, the time had come to begin anew even though it seemed a bit late in the day.

  ‘Funny we didn’t keep company earlier,’ Stan said to her.

  Bettina nodded in agreement. ‘There’s always a right time. It comes along eventually.’

  She lifted her glass to him in a toast. He returned it, thinking how warm he felt in her company, how lucky he was that his family was grown and he had a few years left for himself.

  There was a queue for the stalls so both Michael and Charlie coughed up the extra and they all went up in the circle. There were only a few seats left and they couldn’t all sit together. Mary, Michael and Frances were seated on one side of the aisle, Charlie and Gilda on the other.

  Frances had brought a bag of caramels with her that she’d been given for Christmas. Everyone dipped into the bag until Frances decided that she’d shared enough and the rest were for her.

  She fell asleep halfway through the film, her head resting on Mary’s shoulder. In response to the weight, Mary shifted slightly so she could put her arm around her cousin’s shoulders.

  On sensing her movements and glancing round her to see the sleeping Frances, Michael put his arm around Mary’s shoulders.

  She turned to look at him and the inevitable happened. He kissed her. His lips were warm yet the touch of his cheek against hers was cool.

  She didn’t close her eyes but noticed he closed his. When he opened them again she felt tongue tied.

  ‘That was a great kiss. So how about we get married?’

  She covered her mouth so the sound of her laughter wouldn’t upset those engrossed in the film, or wake her sleeping cousin.

  The kiss, she decided, was her undoing. How could she concentrate on the past life of an ageing schoolmaster following a kiss like that?

  Her emotions were in turmoil and if she’d been made of chocolate she would have formed a puddle on the floor.

  Mary couldn’t see what Charlie and Gilda were up to on the other side of the aisle, but Michael could. They were cuddled up together, staring at each other rather than at the film.

  Michael turned his eyes back to the screen. He knew Gilda was married. He also knew the circumstances of why her husband had been placed in a concentration camp and why she was here, but he’d been sworn to secrecy. He would say nothing until Gilda gave him leave to do so.

  A few days later, Frances was despatched back to the Forest of Dean and the house of Ada Perkins. She seemed surprisingly happy to go back, chatting about the friends she’d made and what might be going on in the forest.

  ‘I’ll catch you a salmon,’ she said, ‘and post it to you.’

  ‘No you will not,’ said Mary. ‘That’s poaching and poaching is stealing. Besides with the post these
days, by the time it arrived it wouldn’t be fit for anything!’

  Frances didn’t seem quite able to comprehend that poaching salmon and tickling trout had anything to do with stealing. Her new friends didn’t regard it that way.

  Two weeks after Frances left, Charlie was scheduled to leave on the train into Temple Meads Station in Bristol, changing there for the train to Blandford Forum where he would change once again for one that would take him to his new ship in Southampton.

  ‘If I don’t get lost seeing as they’ve removed all the station names,’ he quipped jovially. ‘There’s no way of knowing where you are unless you know already or ask somebody.’

  ‘It’s to confuse the enemy,’ Mary said to him.

  He grinned. ‘I don’t know about that, but it certainly confuses me’

  He said his goodbyes to his family and also to Gilda who had accompanied them to the station. Nobody was surprised at her presence, having noticed that something more than friendship had developed between their brother and the foreign woman with the velvet brown eyes. Something had also changed in Gilda herself. There was a brittle happiness about her now and less sadness. It was also noticeable that she no longer plastered her face with make-up, using just enough to enhance. After seeing Charlie off, Gilda hurried away, saying she had to pick up her children from school.

  ‘It was a bit too much,’ Ruby remarked while running her own bright red lipstick over her mouth. ‘I mean, it’s not as though she needs it.’

  Mary had to agree with her. Gilda was a good-looking woman, though they had to remind themselves that she was married.

  ‘It was like a mask,’ she said without really thinking. ‘As if she was trying to hide behind it.’

  The twins exchanged one of their knowing looks. Ruby had obviously been thinking the same thing.

  ‘I wonder what happened back there in Austria.’

  Bettina Hicks had told them that Gilda and her family had been living in Vienna when the Anschluss occurred, the absorption of Austria by Germany. Hitler’s army marched in to ensure all went smoothly.

  ‘I asked Charlie. He said it was her business. Basically he was telling me not to be nosy.’

  ‘But he knows,’ said Mary, linking arms with her father and her sister as they made their way home.

  ‘A man likes to keep some things to himself,’ their father stated. ‘We all need to keep a few secrets to ourselves.’

  Mary wasn’t sure about that, but Ruby agreed with him, though her secret regarded not a man but a bag of sugar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Gareth Stead washed, shaved and put on the cleanest of his dirty shirts. Mrs Pugh used to take his washing home with her once a week, but since her daughter had given birth to her fifth child, her hands were full coping with the other four.

  On sniffing at each armpit, he decided it wouldn’t do and anyway he had a whole box of new shirts courtesy of his friend who’d carried out a midnight raid on a department store in the city of Bath, just a few miles down the road.

  Once the shirt and detached collar were all in place, cuffs fastened with mother-of-pearl cuff links, he plastered Brylcreem on his hair combing it flat until it looked as though it were painted on to his head.

  ‘Gareth, she’ll be all over you,’ he said to his reflection.

  He looked down at the shiny packets lying on the table in his living room behind the bar at the Apple Tree.

  Especially when she claps eyes on them, he thought to himself.

  He’d picked up the six packets of stockings a friend of his had nicked from that big store at the bottom of Park Street in Bristol. Nylon stockings were guaranteed to earn you the favours of any girl you fancied and he had a few favours he wanted from Ruby Sweet.

  Keen to get on with the job and work his wicked charm, he tucked all six packets into the inside of his jacket before thinking better of it. Why give her six pairs of stockings when two might do the trick? He took out four, leaving two in his pocket.

  It was getting close to midday when he was finally standing across the road from the bakery waiting for the last customer of the day to come out. He could see the woman’s hat bobbing about and guessed she was talking nineteen to the dozen, relating all that was or was not happening in the village. Every village had one, a nosy parker whose life revolved around what everyone else was doing. Better than a newspaper they were. Knew everything.

  ‘Come on out, you old bat,’ he muttered to himself. He gave the bulge in his jacket a reassuring pat. He was pretty sure that it was Ruby’s day serving in the shop, but even if it was Mary, he could handle it. He might even give her a pair of stockings by way of a peace offering. On second thoughts he could keep the stockings to give to a more amenable girl and buy a loaf of bread. Mary didn’t like him and he didn’t like girls who could see right through him.

  The incidents with the kid hadn’t helped. The truth was he hadn’t realised it was the younger girl, after all she was tall for her age and looked a lot like her twin cousins. On top of that, he had been drunk both times. He couldn’t help himself. He’d thought it was her. Ruby should know better. He loved her. Surely she knew that? Yes, that was the right word to use. Love. Not lust, and he certainly had plenty of that for her, though no more nor less than for any woman he’d ever known.

  He took another glance at his wristwatch, acquired from the same acquaintance who’d lifted the stockings. If that old biddy didn’t clear off, he thought, I’ll go over there and drag her out.

  Suddenly he heard the bell above the shop door jangle as the woman finally shuffled out, a single shopping bag dangling from one hand.

  ‘Cheerio, Ruby me love,’ he heard her say.

  Ruby! He was in luck. It was Ruby’s day to serve.

  He watched the old woman totter away. ‘Bugger off, you fat old cow,’ he muttered under his breath, not wanting to make a move until she was out of sight.

  Once the old woman was at a safe distance and making sure nobody else was around, he darted across the road.

  He had already made sure that Stan Sweet’s bread van wasn’t around, knowing this was the one day when he used up his petrol rations to deliver bread to other villages hereabouts.

  He took it that Mary had caught the bus to Kingswood and the weekly market and he knew the kid was back with Miriam Powell’s grandmother in the Forest of Dean.

  He pushed the door open just in time to catch Ruby on her way to lock up and pull down the blind. ‘All right then, Rube?’

  Ruby stopped dead, her surprised expression replaced by one of contempt. ‘Don’t call me Rube. My name’s Ruby and I’ll thank you to call me that.’

  She didn’t like the fact that he was here. What was he doing? And what was that she could smell? Brylcreem? Cologne? A mix of both, yet still she detected something rancid and greasy about him, if not his body then definitely in his manner.

  His smile was as oily as his hair. ‘Sorry, Rube … Ruby … I didn’t meant to call you a blackmailer the other week either. But there you are. Slip of the tongue. I’ve got no axe to grind.’

  She eyed him steadily, one foot tapping her impatience. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  He shook his head vehemently. ‘Whatever makes you think that?’

  ‘You’re rambling. You always ramble when you’ve been drinking.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t. So there.’

  He had, but assured himself that she wouldn’t know any different.

  ‘Must be a red-letter day.’

  ‘No. Nothing to do with letters. I wanted to see you.’

  ‘The feeling is not mutual.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Rube … Ruby …’

  ‘What is this about?’

  ‘Us.’

  She shook her head and laughed before her expression hardened, her soft lips set in a straight line. ‘There is no us.’

  ‘I’m sorry you see it that way. As for me, well I reckon it was just a little misunderstanding, and look, I’ve got you a present, well, two p
resents, actually.’

  Gingerly he reached inside his coat for the stockings he’d brought her. He’d been so sure they would work, but her attitude had come as a bit of a surprise. Ruby Sweet had changed a lot in the past few months. However, he didn’t consider that he had. On the contrary he was rather smug and pleased with himself, his confidence acquired from increased drinking with the new friends who came out to see him from the city docks. He reckoned he now knew the right people and that this war would make him his fortune.

  ‘Well,’ he said, his arm outstretched, the cellophane packets of nylons dangling from his hand. ‘Take them. They’re for you. A peace offering to say I’m sorry.’

  Ruby eyed them stiffly but did not touch them. She folded her arms, her fingers tapping against her elbow in time with her foot.

  ‘I take it they’re stolen,’ she said accusingly.

  Gareth shrugged, not quite comprehending that anything was wrong about doing deals with men who were out-and-out thieves.

  ‘Take them!’ He jerked them forward so they were only inches from her face.

  Ruby drew her chin back and looked daggers. ‘I don’t want them.’

  ‘Take them and I’ll forget you stole my sugar.’

  ‘I didn’t steal it,’ Ruby responded hotly. ‘You gave it to me as a direct consequence of your bad behaviour – your very bad behaviour!’

  He dropped his hand slowly, his bright expression totally gone. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I was drunk.’

  ‘You’re always drunk.’

  ‘It was a mistake.’

  ‘Giving me the sugar was a mistake?’

  ‘I meant about the other.’

  Ruby stiffened. ‘You behaved badly towards my eleven-year-old cousin. If things had gone any further, you would now be in prison. Do you realise how stupid you’ve been? Do you?’