Christmas for the Shop Girls

by Joanna Toye

  She knew what she felt for him was love. She knew he was fond of her – more than fond. She knew from the way his breathing got faster and he held her closer and tighter when they kissed that the strong physical attraction was there too. But would he ever act on his feelings?

  He was chewing his pencil, thinking. He looked up to see her looking at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she fibbed.

  ‘OK, so help me with this clue. As we’re all feeling a bit soppy today – “Soft melodies for couples”. Five letters, second letter “a”.’ Then as usual, he answered his own question before Lily had had time to think. ‘Oh, I get it!’ He filled in the squares rapidly. ‘Pairs.’

  Lily looked blank.

  ‘Airs – that’s your melodies, put a “p” in front, as in piano, the instruction in music for playing something quietly – soft, you see? And you get “pairs” – that’s couples, isn’t it?’

  She did now he’d explained it. It was easier when you had the crossword in front of you, as she’d complained to Jim many times. But he’d moved on.

  ‘Which means five down is second letter “r” … And the clue is “Don’t stop, although a person’s upset”. Two words, five letters and then two. So if upset means an anagram of “person’s” …’ He scribbled the letters randomly on the side of the page. ‘Got it! “Press on”.’

  He entered it on the grid triumphantly.

  Well, if that wasn’t a message, thought Lily, standing up and stacking the plates. She hoped she and Jim might be a pair permanently, one day. But for now all she could do was press on regardless. Who needed Morse Code?

  She took the plates out into the scullery and ran the regulation inch of water into the sink to wash up. But as she sprinkled in the washing soda, she had a sudden thought.

  Next year – 1944 – would be a leap year. If Jim hadn’t made a move by then, well, she could always take matters into her own hands. That’d show him!

  All the time they’d been at the table, Dora had been watching them. That they were in love was plain to see. Jim might not show it – not in front of her, anyway, but time and again she’d seen the lovingly indulgent looks he gave her daughter as she elaborated on the nerve of the customer who’d demanded a refund on a baby vest that wasn’t even a brand that Marlow’s sold or even more so as Lily struggled with the stocking she was darning and stabbed her finger for the twentieth time. As for Lily – well, Dora knew she wasn’t the soppy, hearts and flowers type, far from it, but if she was going to give her heart to anyone it would be someone like Jim. He was quieter than she was, not so fierce or outspoken, but he shared the same quick intelligence, the same curiosity about life, the same sense of right and wrong and the same generous heart. Just like Lily, he’d go halfway around the world to help anyone in a fix – like the way he’d helped Beryl with her accounts for the shop. He was responsible and thoughtful too – look how devastated he’d been when the Army had rejected him on account of his eyesight, and how he’d agonised over whether he should move back to his home village to look after his invalid dad when his mum had died. Luckily, Les’s mum, Ivy, had been looking for a way to get out of Hinton and had leapt at the role, taking Les’s younger sister, Susan, with her.

  Yes, thought Dora, as she shook out the tablecloth in the yard, Lily and Jim were a good match. Funny that her youngest should be the first to be, or at least seem, settled. But maybe it wasn’t such a surprise. What chance did Reg have to meet a nice girl, stuck out in the desert? And as for Sid …‘Oh, you know, still keeping his options open,’ was what she said when friends asked if he had a steady girlfriend, as they often did – he was such a good-looking lad. But Dora knew she was fibbing. The real truth, a truth that as his mother she’d always known deep down, was that Sid was not the marrying kind.

  ‘The news is coming on, Mum!’

  Lily was calling her from the doorway.

  ‘Coming!’

  She quickly folded the cloth and hurried in, seating herself just as the chimes of Big Ben faded and the news began, as always:

  ‘This is the BBC Home and Forces Programme. Here is the news and this is Alvar Liddell reading it.’

  Mr Liddell took a breath. If they’d known what was coming, the three of them gathered round the wireless in the small back room – in fact, everyone in the country listening on that warm and stuffy night – might have taken a breath as well.

  The wireless set hissed and popped. The newsreader’s clear tones rose above it.

  ‘The armed forces of Britain, the United States and Canada have landed on the Mediterranean island of Sicily, the first major landing of British troops on European soil since the fall of Crete two years ago. Initial resistance has been weak against the British with little anti-aircraft fire and no enemy naval intervention.’

  Another breath from the radio set. Silence in the room.

  ‘Late last night airborne troops in parachutes and gliders – many of whom fought in North Africa – were dropped over the island. American paratroopers were the first to land at 2110 hours. They were followed by British airborne troops two hours later. There is little news about them at present, but all the aircraft carrying them returned to base in North Africa safely.’

  Usually, by now, Dora would have stood up, the mention of North Africa having clutched at her heart, and Jim would have leapt to turn the radiogram off.

  When Reg had first been posted out there, Dora had bravely stuck it out through every bulletin, but after a couple of scares about his safety and one chilling telegram from the War Office when he was missing, she could only take so much. Since then, she often needed time before she could face hearing what he might be going through. But when Lily looked at her mother, she was sitting forward, drinking in every word.

  The airborne assault, it appeared, had been followed by a huge invasion force – hundreds of ships from North Africa carrying troops, equipment and heavy artillery. The Americans had met some resistance at their landing point, but the British had been luckier at theirs. The Canadians, poor things, had faced choppy seas, but the British, again, had been protected by their designated bay. The troops were now, Mr Liddell assured them, despite some heavy sniping, making steady progress inland.

  Finally, and with a sense of reluctance, the bulletin dwindled into domestic news – industrial production figures and hopes for the grain harvest. Interest in the room immediately waned, and Jim reached to turn off the set.

  ‘Sicily!’ he mused. ‘This is it, then. The push to take back Europe.’

  ‘It explains one thing anyway,’ said Lily with grim satisfaction. She liked a reason for things, and if there wasn’t one, had a tendency to make up her own, often far more complex than the reality. This time, however, there was no need. ‘That was why Sid had to shoot off, like an oily rope on a wet deck, as he put it. And why he and Bill went into such a huddle at the reception.’

  Working at the Admiralty, Sid would have known all about the invasion plans. So would Reg, not that they’d heard from him lately – and not that he’d have been able to tell them if they had.

  Lily looked at her mother, wondering what to say. Even after a couple of narrow escapes – and those were only the ones they knew about – it was no good trying to pretend that Reg was invincible, protected by some sort of invisible force field. He was in danger every minute of every day, and now that he was no doubt part of an assault force, every second of every minute. She voiced the only thing she dared.

  ‘It sounds good so far though, Mum, doesn’t it?’

  Dora nodded absently.

  She was thinking about Reg, of course. He was with her every waking moment, and often when she was sleeping too. In church that day she’d prayed to God to keep her boy safe – she’d prayed for every mother’s son, but Reg first and foremost. But in a separate prayer she’d named someone else, Hugh, the Canadian she’d met, the man that Lily and Jim knew nothing about and could never have suspected.

  Not for t
he first time, she replayed in her head the few chance meetings they’d had from their first encounter at the WVS tea bar to the moment on that broken pavement when she’d lost her footing. Hugh, like a guardian angel, had emerged from a shop and saved her from falling. He’d pulled her up against his uniform tunic and held her there, safe, close, warm, and Dora knew the giddy, fizzing feeling she’d had was nothing to do with the shock of the fall.

  But Dora was a sensible woman. Even then, beyond a wonder that she could feel that way again after her long widowhood, Hugh Anderson might have remained nothing but a fantasy figure, a mirage, and the falling and the being held something she must have imagined. But then, a few weeks later, he’d appeared at the tea bar again – and not by chance. He’d sought her out deliberately – to say goodbye. He was being posted away.

  ‘Down south,’ he’d explained, ‘and then, who knows where?’

  Now, in her own back room among her own familiar things, Dora knew exactly where he was. The broadcast had named the First Canadian Armoured Brigade – Hugh’s lot – as part of the invasion force. He’d been on those choppy seas, she was sure. He’d waded ashore at the head of his men, led them up the beach to the shelter of the rocks, and now he, and they, were making their way through … here her imagination let her down. What was Sicily like? Sandy scrub? Forest? Ravines? Always assuming he’d survived and would go on surviving. That his tunic hadn’t been ripped by a sniper’s bullet or by shrapnel …

  With the smallest of sighs, she stood up. She knew what she had to do. Push down the worry, grit her teeth, pin on a smile, keep calm and carry on.

  ‘Well, this won’t knit the baby a new bonnet,’ she said. ‘Or get the cocoa made.’

  ‘Reg will be OK, Mum.’ Lily gripped her hand as she passed. ‘I’m sure he will. I said a prayer for him in church.’

  ‘Me too, love, me too.’ Dora squeezed her daughter’s hand in return. ‘Anyway, we’ll know when we know. Nothing we can do about it from here, is there?’

  Lily shook her head.

  ‘No,’ confirmed Dora. ‘So I’d best get that cocoa on and we’ll get to bed. It’s been a long day.’

  Chapter 18

  There was no need to buy a Sunday newspaper – a child of five could have written the front-page story. All the headlines were the same, or variations on a theme.

  ALLIES INVADE SICILY! shouted one.

  INVASION BEGINS! yelled another.

  SICILY INVADED stated a more sober paper, more soberly.

  But it was the only one. Even Hitler’s feared propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels would have had a hard time trying to play down the jubilant mood in Britain.

  OPERATION HUSKY A ROARING SUCCESS!

  and

  FIRST LINE OF AXIS DEFENCES CRUSHED!

  crowed the sub-headings in the noisier papers, while the Sunday Pictorial even dared to claim:

  HITLER – THE END IS IN SIGHT!

  Really? Could they dare to hope?

  Maybe they could, thought Lily, poring over the family’s tattered atlas with Jim: from Sicily the toe of Italy was within striking distance. And then, and then – if the British and Commonwealth troops and the Aussies and the Kiwis and the Americans and the Canadians could do it, and together they surely could; if they could fight their way up, whatever resistance they met … Lily traced the route they might take. Naples, Rome, through or over the Alps … then all of Europe would be before them. With the Russians pushing back on the Eastern Front and if, in time, there were other invasions – into Northern France maybe … well, yes, maybe they could dare to hope.

  After the flatness they’d felt in the immediate aftermath of the wedding, it was exciting but unsettling – too much emotion for one weekend. Jim sensed Lily’s mood.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, closing the atlas and pulling her to her feet. ‘Let’s go to the cricket.’

  As editor of the Marlow’s Messenger, the staff newsletter, Jim had to report on matches. Peter Simmonds had appointed himself manager-coach of the football team and captain of the cricket, and always wrote up an account, but Jim thought it wise to attend the occasional match himself. Though Mr Simmonds couldn’t fiddle the final scores, Jim didn’t trust him to be entirely unbiased. He didn’t want to find himself condoning a ball-tampering scandal or some footballing foul which his colleague had conveniently failed to mention.

  ‘Who are we playing?’ asked Lily as they walked to the cricket field, which the council had been unable to plough up for allotments because it was protected by some sort of covenant.

  ‘Tatchell’s Second XI,’ said Jim with a raised eyebrow. ‘Let’s hope Barry Bigley isn’t the umpire.’

  By the time they got there, the match had started, but thankfully the umpire was no one they recognised. Jim and Lily found a place on the boundary and Jim put down his jacket so they could sit on the grass. Lily leant against him, the sun on her face but, filtered through a fringe of trees, not in her eyes. Marlow’s were batting and, already absorbed in the game, Jim put his arm round her and kissed the top of her head while she scanned the crowd.

  A good number of Tatchell’s employees from the factory floor had turned out in support (‘Probably a condition of work, knowing that place!’ scorned Jim) but there was no one Lily recognised from Marlow’s, just what she presumed were a few long-suffering wives and a sprinkling of children playing tag behind the sight-screens. Suddenly, though, she sat up and nudged Jim in the ribs.

  ‘What is it? A wasp?’

  ‘No! Look!’ On the other side of the pitch, coming across the grass, were Miss Frobisher and a small fair-haired boy in shorts and an Aertex shirt, presumably her son. ‘Look who it is!’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Jim, for once not adding, ‘Three holes in the desert’, a weak wartime joke that was doing the rounds.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Jim teased. ‘You were the one who told me Simmonds was sweet on her. Beryl spotted it at the fashion show. And you said they’d been going on their breaks together.’

  ‘Some of the time. And at work is one thing, but coming to the cricket in her own time …?’

  ‘Well, there it is. And there she is. But it’s a black mark for you, Lily, so much for your detection skills!’

  ‘I’ve been stuck in the corner on Schoolwear lately, remember!’ Lily retorted. ‘You can’t see a thing from over there!’

  ‘Can’t stick your nose in, you mean!’ grinned Jim. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’m trying to watch the match.’

  Lily wasn’t. She watched, fascinated, as Miss Frobisher, in fawn slacks and a crisp pale blue shirt, scanned the field. Her little boy – John – was scampering ahead. Mr Simmonds, next in to bat, was strapping on his pads at the pavilion steps. He must have been waiting for Miss Frobisher to arrive, because he looked up, saw her, and broke into a grin. He waved; Miss Frobisher waved and smiled back and pointed him out to her little boy. He windmilled both arms and started capering about.

  ‘Well!’

  Sighing, Jim turned to Lily.

  ‘Not again! Well what?’

  ‘Do you think they’re – you know – properly going steady? Courting? I mean, if they don’t mind being seen in public … do you suppose it’s been going on all this time?’

  ‘How would I know? Funnily enough, when Simmonds and I are banged up in that airless hole he calls his office, we’re discussing stock levels, not our love lives. Why don’t you go and ask her?’

  ‘Don’t be daft! As if I could! I don’t even know whether to go and say hello.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Well … it’s a bit awkward.’

  ‘Who for? We’re all adults.’

  Lily still wasn’t sure, but Miss Frobisher solved the problem for her.

  Her son had attached himself to an older boy and, having spoken to him and presumably told him where she was going, Miss Frobisher walked round the boundary to where Lily and Jim were sitting.

  ‘Goo
d afternoon,’ she smiled, as cool as a cucumber kept in an ice house. Jim got politely to his feet and Lily scrambled to hers. ‘I didn’t know you were a fan of cricket, Lily.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Lily said quickly. ‘I came with Jim; he’s writing it up for the Messenger.’

  ‘Ah. Then perhaps you won’t mind missing the next few overs and helping with the teas. The urn takes forever to heat up.’

  So this wasn’t the first time she’d been to a match! Following her meekly, Lily found herself in the tiny pavilion kitchen, assembling cups and laying out sandwiches according to Miss Frobisher’s instructions.

  Miss Frobisher didn’t say anything about herself and Mr Simmonds – she hardly needed to. But they were a couple all right – it was as plain as – well, as if it had come in a note wrapped round a cricket ball and thrown through a plate-glass window. Lily didn’t say anything either, but she felt honoured, as if she’d been entrusted with a secret.

  Tea laid out and the urn hissing like a demented cobra, the two of them went out into the sunshine and stood on the steps. The score had crept up.

  ‘Ten to make and the match to win,’ murmured Miss Frobisher.

  It sounded like a quotation – it was a quotation, but Lily didn’t know that. She could see from the scoreboard, though, that Marlow’s did indeed need ten runs to crush their rivals. Mr Simmonds was still in to bat, though the other Marlow’s player had changed – twice, Miss Frobisher, displaying some arcane knowledge, informed her. Lily screwed up her eyes. The sun was lower now. The other batsman was, she was sure, Gloria’s boyfriend, the much-maligned Derek from Shirts and Ties.

  ‘And Peter’s made a half-century, look!’

  Now Lily did look, it was recorded on the scoreboard. Peter! she thought. Just like that!

  Till now, Lily had never quite seen what all the fuss was about with cricket. On the wireless it had always seemed interminable and mindlessly dull, but as this game neared its end, it had her gripped, especially as Miss Frobisher proved an expert commentator.