Christmas for the Shop Girls

by Joanna Toye

  Lily gulped. Whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been an out-and-out confession.

  ‘I’m sorry. Have I embarrassed you?’ Miss Frobisher smiled. ‘But as you’re the only witness … with Mr Goodridge of course, but, well—’ She raised a shapely eyebrow. ‘Men! I doubt he even noticed. I don’t think any of the cricket team have.’

  Lily refrained from repeating Jim’s joke about putting the story in the staff newsletter.

  She wasn’t sure what to say next. A simple ‘thank you for telling me’ would have done, but relief at having the issue taken out of her hands and the affection she felt for her boss won.

  ‘Thank you,’ she managed in her usual voice, before her beaming smile got in the way, ‘for telling me. And I’m … I’m very happy for you!’

  ‘How did the happy couple get on after they left us?’ Dora asked when Lily got home from work that night. ‘Gladys has still got her head in the clouds, I dare say.’

  Lily’s entire dinner hour had been taken up watching Gladys draw her fork back and forth through her mash, inscribing the letter ‘B’, and arranging her peas in a heart shape as she eulogised about her wedding night.

  ‘Not the clouds,’ she grinned. ‘Gladys is somewhere in outer space. Another galaxy, maybe. Poor Mr Bunting – we’re supposed to be getting ready for the sale but in the end he had to take the red pen off her and mark down the dominoes himself.’

  She added that Gladys couldn’t be happier, that Bill had got safely back to Portsmouth, and that the new bride was going to go down and see him as much as she could over the summer.

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Dora.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Lily.

  She glanced out of the window at Jim, who was earthing up the potatoes. She looked at his long back with its untucked shirt, at the way the late sun touched his hair and brought out the chestnut in it, at his hands in the warm soil, hands which gave her little electric shocks when they ventured into her blouse or pressed her against him. She wondered if they’d ever have a wedding night that she could tell Gladys about – discreetly. The way things stood, she couldn’t be sure. At least she had more than one idea about how to move on. If there was one thing better than having a plan, it was having two.

  ‘By the way,’ her mother went on, ‘I shan’t be here tomorrow when you get in. I’ve had to swap my shift at the tea bar to help Mrs Venables out. Her daughter’s baby’s come early … Lily, are you listening? You’ll have to do your own tea tomorrow. Or get your Jim to take you out!’

  My Jim, thought Lily. Is he? Time, she supposed, would tell. Depending how much time she gave him.

  Chapter 20

  There was one snag with the swapped shift, and Dora had realised it from the start. She’d be trapped at the tea bar with Jean Crosbie, a sitting duck for her neighbour’s endless diatribes.

  ‘I said to him, I said, “Who do you think you’re fooling?” Can you believe it, Dora, thinking he could get that past me, using sugar paper to weigh out my butter ration, when we all know it weighs heavier than greaseproof! I said to him, I said, “If you think I’m bringing my custom here in future, Bert Dodds, you’ve got another think coming!” I mean, you’d think he’d be grateful, I’ve been with him since rationing first came in—’

  ‘Where are you going to go instead?’ Dora managed to slip in a quick question as Jean drew breath.

  ‘I shall go up Fishwick’s, on the Tipton Road,’ declared Jean. ‘They’ve got a better selection anyway. I wish I’d gone there from the off, but I thought I ought to support the corner shop. What a fool! Cling peaches, I heard Fishwick’s had the other week.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You go to Baxter’s, though, don’t you?’ Jean named another grocer nearby. ‘What do you reckon to them, ’cos you’re choosy about your provisions, I know – oh, look at that!’ Jean was off on another tack. ‘Nasty stray! Go on, get off with you!’ A dog had appeared and was sniffing round a curling sandwich crust on the ground. Jean leant over the counter-flap and banged a spoon on a tin plate. ‘Go on! Shoo!’

  ‘Just a minute, Jean, don’t!’ Dora touched her shoulder.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Jean shook her off. ‘Probably full of fleas! Putting the customers off! Shoo! Shoo!’

  ‘No, no stop it, please!’ Dora insisted. ‘I don’t think that dog’s a stray.’

  Jean stopped the plate-banging – if anything would put customers off, it was that – and wheeled round to look at her.

  ‘He’s got no collar on,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘No, but he looks pretty well fed. And – well, I think I might know him.’

  ‘Know him? How? I didn’t know you were a dog-lover, Dora Collins!’

  ‘I’m not especially, but …’

  Dora moved to the door of the van and went down the steps. Crouching down, she curled her fingers and held them out to the dog.

  ‘It’s you, isn’t it,’ she said softly. ‘It’s you, Buddy. You’ve come back.’

  It was just after four when the bus dropped Dora – and Buddy – in Nettleford village. The journey had only taken half an hour once she’d found out which bus to get, but to Dora, never a great traveller, it might as well have been a camel train to Samarkand. She’d never been out this way before: she rarely strayed from the web of streets around her home in Hinton. The countryside was as alien to her as if she’d tracked what was left of Hugh’s former company not to its base in the heart of England, but to the wilds of Canada itself.

  Standing uncertainly on a small triangle of green, she glanced around. The village was hardly picture-postcard pretty – too far north for half timbering and hollyhocks, and the main road ran straight through it. Instead there was a row of red-brick workmen’s cottages and a couple of shuttered shops, casualties of a wartime drop-off in trade. But the post office and general store looked to be open: Dora made for it to ask directions. Buddy, on the length of string she’d slipped round his neck, trotted meekly after her.

  The postmaster was serving someone to War Savings stamps, but his wife bustled out from behind the shop counter to point the visitor on her way.

  ‘It’s quite a walk,’ she warned her. ‘Turn left at the church, down Tanners Lane, bear right where the road forks, then straight on at the crossroads – there’s no signposts of course – half a mile on your right you’ll see the gates to Nettleford Manor – well, there’s a barrier now, and a sentry box, for the base.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dora, tugging Buddy away from the vegetable display he was sniffing with worrying intent. ‘I’d better get going.’

  For the first time since the start of the war, she didn’t even think of the shoe leather she’d be wearing out. It was a fine afternoon, a cheeky sun playing hide and seek with the clouds, and Dora was buoyed by a sense of adventure. There was something about Hugh and the memory of him, not to mention having his dog beside her, that made her feel brave and bold and quite unlike her usual self. She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d say to explain herself when she got to the base. All Hugh had told her was that his batman – unnamed – who was remaining behind had agreed to take care of Buddy. And not always very good care, judging by how things had ended up!

  But she’d deal with that when she got there. For the moment, Dora was just amused when she thought of the look on Jean Crosbie’s face when she’d bundled her WVS overall into her bag and announced that she was off.

  ‘Mrs Greene and Miss Turner’ll be here for the evening rush and I’m sure you can cope on your own till then,’ she’d said airily. ‘I’ve done it often enough, and I dare say you have too. I’ll make up the time another day, but I’ve got to get this dog back where he belongs.’

  Now, as she set out smartly along the dusty lanes, the novelty of her situation struck her once more. No pavement here, broken or otherwise, no sandbags in front of shops, no torn posters or wire-covered windows, just cow parsley foaming in the ditches and a huge, open sky. Over the unkempt hedges, cows and sheep g
razed together and beyond them, fields of corn were on the turn from green to gold. She had time to take it in because Buddy slowed her down, his nose vacuuming along the verge, pulling up sharply every time he found a particularly interesting scent. After close examination of an enticing bramble, he lifted his leg, and Dora heard the throaty rumble of an approaching vehicle. She stepped up onto the verge, tugging Buddy closer to her as a tractor lumbered past with its load of hay. It was as if all the Food Flashes and Government leaflets and Ministry of Information films had come to life and leapt into colour in front of her: there was a whole other world out here.

  Dragging a reluctant Buddy away, she set off again, only to hear another engine behind, a lighter one this time. There was a gateway ahead; she hurried towards it for sanctuary and waited to see what it would be this time. A van with a pig in the back? A few crates of chickens? A rattling milk churn? No – round the corner came an Army jeep – a Canadian Army jeep, with a number stencilled on the side and a maple leaf on the bonnet. It passed her, slowed, then stopped and backed up beside her. Buddy set up a frantic volley of barks.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am?’ The driver – a corporal from his stripes – leant across the passenger seat. ‘That dog you have there … he looks very like … is he yours?’

  ‘No,’ Dora said. ‘Actually, he’s one of yours.’

  ‘It’s Buddy, then? I don’t believe it!’

  He switched off the engine, scrambled out and came round his vehicle. He wasn’t very tall, but spare and wiry, with brown hair turning grey in a widow’s peak over a thin, mobile face. Buddy danced on the end of his string as the man crouched down in front of him, then leapt up, put his paws on his shoulders and licked his face all over.

  ‘It’s Buddy!’ he repeated.

  ‘It is,’ confirmed Dora. ‘And pleased to see you, by the look of it!’

  ‘Not as pleased as I am to see him! I’ve been hunting all over town! I don’t know how I’d have explained to the major—’ He broke off and stood up. ‘But where … how did you come to find him? How did you know who he was? And get to bring him out here? I lost him in Hinton.’

  ‘I know you did,’ said Dora. She couldn’t quite believe she was having this conversation with a complete stranger in the middle of an English country lane. There was something about these Canadians and meeting them in unlikely places. ‘And I didn’t find him. He found me.’

  A quarter of an hour later, things became even more unlikely. Feeling rather like Alice in Wonderland when she fell down the rabbit hole, although in her case she’d been whizzed there in the jeep, Dora found herself being offered a cup of tea in what had once been the library of an English stately home. As her new acquaintance summoned a private and asked him to take Buddy, who was tied up outside, to his kennel, she looked around. The former library had become the Sergeants’ and Corporals’ Mess – there’d been a sign on the door. The books and the stately furniture had been removed and replaced with functional chairs and tables. Now there were board games on the shelves, and packs of cards and copies of something called The Bugle, which she took to be the Canadian forces’ newspaper. Most pleasing to her eye, though, was a trolley with an urn of hot water and cups on it.

  The private dispatched on his task, Sam – he’d given his name as Sam Cassidy – came over to her.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea? There’s coffee as well’ – it was ‘carfee’, the way he pronounced it – ‘but I guess …’ He grinned. ‘I know you British and your tea.’

  Dora gave him a smile.

  ‘A cup of tea would be very welcome,’ she confirmed.

  She watched him as he set to with cups and a milk jug and wondered what he was doing in the Army. Now she’d seen him close to, there were quite a few threads of grey in his hair. She guessed he was around her age, so just about on the limit for the draft. A regular soldier, maybe? Or simply a good citizen determined to do his bit?

  He approached with her cup and saucer – and a sugar bowl.

  It was a long time since Dora had allowed herself more than a few grains of sugar in her tea, and now she watched a full spoonful fall into her cup with something like reverence. She stirred and drank. It was delicious.

  Sam, sipping his coffee, was watching her.

  ‘So … tell me all about it. How you met Buddy and the major,’ he began.

  Conversation in the jeep had been limited; with the top down, Dora had been too busy holding on to Buddy with one hand and her hat with the other.

  Now she explained – in a somewhat edited version – how she’d encountered Hugh Anderson and his dog.

  ‘Seems Buddy’s got a knack for introductions,’ Sam observed. ‘Doing his bit for Anglo-Canadian relations. Maybe a dog should be standard issue to each platoon.’

  Dora couldn’t help smiling. It was the way ‘dog’ sounded like ‘daag’ and ‘platoon’ became ‘pladoon’ and the way everything he said lifted slightly at the end of the sentence, as if it were a question even when it wasn’t.

  ‘Good idea. If they didn’t all have Buddy’s knack for getting into mischief.’ She knew, because Hugh had told her, that Buddy had disgraced himself by chewing an Army blanket, and she could have bet that was the least of it. ‘But how did you come to lose him?’

  Sam gave a sigh.

  ‘I had a couple of hours to myself, and a few errands to run in town. I took him with me, tied him to a lamppost. I wasn’t away more than ten minutes, I come out of the store and he’s gone. Some boys told me he’d seen a pigeon, slipped his collar and – vamoosh!’ Sam grinned. ‘But he must have caught that pigeon’s homing instinct to have found you at your tea bar again.’

  ‘Ah, but they’re gun dogs, aren’t they, spaniels?’ said Dora. When she’d first encountered Buddy she’d casually asked Jim who, being a country boy, knew these things, what spaniels were known for. ‘Retrievers. And he retrieved perhaps the only other person he knew in Hinton.’

  ‘Even so, clever of him to remember you. And where to find you.’

  Dora blushed. In her account, she’d implied that she’d only met Hugh and Buddy once.

  A silence fell. A couple of soldiers looked in, saw Dora there, and hurriedly went out again.

  ‘Nothing personal,’ Sam explained quickly. ‘But unaccustomed to seeing a lady hereabouts. So, your turn. Tell me about yourself.’

  Dora was nonplussed. Not used to talking about herself, she hardly knew where to start.

  ‘There’s not much to tell …’ she faltered. ‘I’m very ordinary. I do my voluntary work, parcels for prisoners, comforts for refugees, knitting, of course, lots of knitting. And the tea bar—’

  ‘Ah, the tea bar. The fourth emergency service.’

  She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  ‘The rest of the time,’ she went on, ‘I do some sewing for a friend who has a shop. I queue, I cook, I do my housework, like everyone else. I do a bit more knitting. I write letters to my two boys in the Forces—’

  ‘Two boys.’ His interest seemed to quicken. ‘Where are they? I mean – we’re on the same side, you can tell me. If you want to.’

  ‘I’m lucky,’ said Dora, knowing she was. ‘Sid’s in London, and likely to stay there, or in this country, anyway. My elder boy, Reg, is abroad, but where he is, he’s not in any immediate danger. Not now.’

  ‘You are lucky.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So that’s it?’

  ‘No – my daughter, Lily, my youngest, she’s still at home. And I have a lodger, Jim. They both work at Marlow’s.’

  He seemed impressed.

  ‘Oh, I know it. The store. Very smart.’

  ‘They like it. And they’re doing well there.’

  Dora hadn’t talked so much about herself in years, if ever, but Sam’s interest was encouraging; he followed everything she said with bird-like nods of his head and little compressions of his mouth. His next question was a natural one, in view of the one thing she hadn’t mentioned.

/>   ‘And your husband – is he doing war work?’

  Dora shook her head.

  ‘I’m afraid he died.’

  Sam was immediately apologetic.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am.’ He knew her name but seemed shy of using it. ‘I’m sorry I asked. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Dora, and it was. ‘It was a long time ago. Lily was only a baby.’

  ‘Even tougher then.’

  There was no answer to that.

  ‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘How do you come to be in England?’

  ‘Ah, that’s a long story.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘So long, I can’t start it now. I think you’ll find you’ve missed the last bus back from the village, and I need to be back here for roll-call, so if I’m going to run you home—’

  ‘Would you? Well … if you’re sure …?’

  ‘Come on!’ he grinned. ‘It was my fault you had to make the trek in the first place. I owe you that at least.’

  Chapter 21

  Dora tried to make him drop her in town, but Sam insisted on driving her right to her door and she had no choice but to accept. It was a different jeep, a closed-in one this time, so her hat wasn’t a problem, but the bench seat was slippery and Dora had a job to stop herself sliding into him as he took the corners and to keep her knee away from his hand when he changed gear. That would have been embarrassing – it was bad enough the way her skirt would keep riding up. But Sam kept his eyes on the road as he told her his story. It wasn’t what she’d expected at all.

  He was married, with one son. When Canada had declared war on Germany, a week after Britain, his son, Bruce, had announced he was going to enlist in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. His mother had been distraught, but there was no stopping the boy – he was eighteen, after all. He was accepted straight away (‘Naturally – 20/20 vision, A1 fit,’ said Sam) but within six weeks of starting to fly, his plane had come down on a training exercise. He’d suffered severe burns and had died twenty-four hours later – before Sam and his wife could get there.