Christmas for the Shop Girls

by Joanna Toye

  Shaken, Dora put her hand to her throat. She’d had some scares with Reg, but never that grimmest of news.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘How terrible. I can’t imagine—’

  ‘No. You can’t,’ he said simply. ‘No one can. No one should have to.’ They stopped at a crossroads and he met her eyes briefly, then looked left and right and drove on. ‘They didn’t want us to see him in the mortuary because of the injuries, but Grace – my wife – she insisted. And well – it broke her. She … I had to … she’s in a place … let’s call it a sanatorium.’

  Dora shook her head. There was nothing to say.

  Sam gave a minute shrug.

  ‘So – I was home alone. We ran a store together, as it happens – a small hardware store – and well, my heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t in anything much any more. I carried on for a while. But after Pearl Harbor there was more of a drive towards enlisting, we could see the Japs aiming for British Columbia next. I was just within the age range to sign up and I thought – why not? What have I got to lose?’

  What he meant was what did he have to live for, Dora thought. Still she said nothing. Now he’d started, she thought it best to let him carry on.

  ‘I don’t know what I was expecting. I had this romantic idea that I could make a difference, avenge my boy somehow, give his life and his loss some kind of meaning. But of course, with my background, at my age, I wasn’t headed for a combat role – I was always going to be one of those who only stand and wait.’

  He gave a short laugh.

  ‘Stores orderly, that’s me – I might as well have stayed back in Alberta! But at least I managed to get myself posted to the UK. And when the vacancy came up for a batman to the major, I was first in line. I knew he was well thought of and I figured they wouldn’t keep him hanging around the British Midlands for ever. So I’d get posted with him. Some place where the action was.’

  Talk of the major made Dora sit up straighter.

  ‘But he was posted away,’ she put in. ‘And you’re still here.’

  Sam slid her a look.

  ‘Oh, you know that, do you?’

  Careful, she told herself. She was feeling far too comfortable with Sam. She was going to let slip that she’d met Hugh more than once if she didn’t watch out.

  ‘He did mention in passing he’d be leaving.’ She added haltingly, as if trying to remember, ‘The south of England, I think he said.’

  ‘Yes, well, there’s the irony for you. OK, he’s a regular soldier, but a fine man like him – and a family man – wife, two children—’

  So Hugh’s background, happily married, was just as Dora had imagined it. Of course it was. Oblivious, Sam carried on.

  ‘So they posted him to an operational unit, but they kept me back – sent a younger guy to be his batman.’ He threw her another look, then returned his eyes to the road. ‘I can’t tell you where they are now, but if they win through, they’ll be eating a lot of spaghetti!’

  So she’d been right about that, as well. Hugh’s unit had been part of the invasion of Sicily.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sam.’ She was shy of using his name, too, but it felt right here. ‘You’ve been through so much.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Not as much as some folks. A lot of folks. I should be thankful, shouldn’t I? Looks like Jesus doesn’t want me for a sunbeam just yet.’

  Would it be crass to say it? She did, anyway.

  ‘And you’ve got Buddy to look after. You wouldn’t want to abandon him.’

  It had been the right thing to say. It lightened the mood. He gave a nod of acknowledgement.

  ‘Yes, and he’s a pretty big responsibility!’

  They were on the outskirts of Hinton now and she realised she’d better direct him. There was no chance for much more conversation, what with the closed roads and the potholes. They wove through the centre of town and out again and within a few minutes, the jeep had turned into Brook Street. Sam slowed and the houses slid past till he pulled up outside number 31.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ he announced.

  ‘Thank you for the lift,’ said Dora. ‘And the tea. And talking of sweet, the sugar!’

  Sam hadn’t missed her rapturous expression when she’d tasted her tea. He’d disappeared and returned with a box of sugar lumps, which he’d tucked discreetly in her bag.

  ‘No protests,’ he’d said. ‘We have more than enough.’

  Now he jumped out, came round the front of the jeep and opened her door for her. Dora clambered out, trying not to show too much leg. Sam swept off his forage cap and chucked it on the seat. He closed the door and held out his hand.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Dora,’ he said.

  ‘You too.’

  ‘And thank you again for playing the Good Samaritan.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘Oh, but I have to,’ Sam insisted. ‘I’d sure have hated to write to the major and tell him Buddy was lost.’

  ‘I’m glad you won’t have to.’

  Sam had his back to the row of houses, so he didn’t see the door opening. He didn’t see Jean Crosbie, her hair tied up in a turban, emerge onto the step with a duster in her hand.

  Dora met her neighbour’s eyes, but it was Jean’s mouth that amused her most. It fell open like a stage trapdoor. An Army jeep in their street which hardly ever saw any traffic but the milkman’s wagon and kids in their go-karts! Dora’s hand clasped by a strange man, a serviceman, and a foreign serviceman at that! And hearing him say, in his strange, soft accent, that he’d be sure to pass by the tea bar to say hello next time he was in town.

  Dora held Jean’s stunned gaze for a moment, then turned to face her companion.

  ‘Do,’ she replied. ‘I’d like that very much.’

  When she got in, Lily and Jim were eating a tea of fish and chips – Lily had baulked at cooking then, thought Dora. No surprise there!

  ‘You’re late, aren’t you, Mum?’ Lily was sprinkling vinegar. ‘Jim got some for you as well. They’re on a plate in the oven.’

  Dora unpinned her hat.

  ‘Oh, Jim, you’re an angel. I’m ready for them.’

  ‘No halo needed,’ Jim called after her as she went through to the kitchen. ‘It’s supposed to be hake – more like cotton wool stuffed with pins! But the chips are all right.’

  Dora fetched her plate and brought it to the table. Lily was in the middle of telling Jim about Gladys’s reaction to the rest of the weekend’s thrilling excitement.

  ‘I didn’t know where to start,’ Lily was saying. ‘Seeing Miss Frobisher and Mr Simmonds together, or Gwenda turning up and all the news about Reg. But it hardly mattered; Gladys was still so wrapped up in her and Bill, I don’t think she took any of it in.’

  Dora sat down. She wondered what they’d say if she’d told them she’d had some excitement herself that afternoon, that on a whim she’d headed off into the middle of nowhere on a bus, with a dog on a piece of string. A dog that she’d first encountered when a man had unexpectedly walked into her life, and, through the same dog, had met another.

  Lily passed her the salt, and Dora thanked her with a smile.

  She’d never mentioned Hugh to anyone, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep meeting Sam quiet – there were the sugar lumps for a start, not to mention Jean Crosbie. And why should she? Lily and Sid kept urging her to have a life of her own, and if Sam was serious about dropping by the tea bar again, she just might do that. It was about time she treated herself to a proper hairdo, she thought, probing a piece of fish for bones, instead of washing and setting her hair herself at home. She might even spend some of her coupons on a blouse she’d noticed the other day in Dorothy Perkins. After all, why not?

  ‘Sugar? Lump sugar? Mum! Where did you get these?’

  When the fish and chips had been eaten, Dora freshened the pot of tea and brought it to the table with some of the sugar lumps in her best cut-glass dish.

  ‘They’r
e not black market, are they?’ Jim tried to sound scandalised, but Dora could see he was practically drooling.

  ‘They were a gift,’ she replied, sitting down. ‘Pass your cup, Jim.’ He did so. ‘Well, a thank you, actually,’ she went on, pouring him some tea and passing the cup back. ‘For doing someone a good turn.’

  ‘Who’s got sugar lumps to give away?’ demanded Lily. Then: ‘Jim! What are you doing? You’re not taking two?’

  ‘If they’re BM, we’d better make them disappear quickly, hadn’t we?’ Jim stopped with his hand poised over the bowl.

  ‘Oh, go on,’ said Dora. ‘Treat yourself.’

  Jim did, stirred, and drank with his eyes closed appreciatively. He might have been tasting fine wine or twenty-year-old whisky.

  ‘So – answer my question.’ Never mind spaniels, Lily was a positive Jack Russell when she was on to something. ‘Who’s giving away sugar lumps?’

  ‘The Canadians,’ said Dora airily. ‘They’ve got plenty.’

  Lily and Jim listened open-mouthed as she told them about her afternoon, again skimming over her encounters with Hugh, and focusing on her concern to get Buddy back where he belonged.

  ‘Hah! Arrange the words “horse”, “dark”, “you’re” and “a” in no particular order,’ said Jim. ‘But good for you!’

  ‘Yes, well done, Mum!’ said Lily. ‘Do you think you’ll see him again, this Sam?’

  ‘What? I doubt it,’ flannelled Dora. ‘I shan’t be going traipsing out there again, shall I?’

  ‘He might find you, though,’ Lily observed shrewdly. ‘He knows where you live. And who knows what he might give us next time?’

  ‘Steak,’ said Jim with relish. ‘T-bone steak.’

  ‘What do you know about steak?’ queried Lily. ‘Have you ever had one?’

  ‘I read my Raymond Chandler,’ retorted Jim. ‘They live on it over the pond. In their diners.’

  ‘Over the pond! Diners! Listen to you!’ snorted Lily. ‘I want doughnuts. All that sugar’s given me a proper craving for one!’

  Chapter 22

  ‘Marvellous, isn’t it! Smack in the middle of wedding season! My busiest period for alterations!’

  It was early August, and with the summer sale now offering ‘Final Reductions’, Lily had been called back temporarily to help on Childrenswear. Beryl had been reeled in by a Marlow’s advertisement in the Chronicle, promising babies’ napkins ‘At Prices You Will Not See Again!’

  Lily stood by as her friend, after bitter experience of leaks, pulled the terry squares this way and that, testing for thickness and strength.

  ‘You won’t find anything wrong with them, Beryl,’ Lily admonished. ‘This is Marlow’s, remember, they’re good quality! And as for worrying about Mum leaving you in the lurch with your weddings—’

  ‘It happens!’ said Beryl. ‘She’ll be too busy planning hers!’

  ‘Don’t talk such nonsense!’

  ‘You’ll see! When an older woman has her head turned, it’s all love’s young dream. Your mum and this Sam’ll be in the Chronicle next, like Robert and Evelyn were when they got married! “Love Across the Miles” – I can see it now!’

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ replied Lily, exasperated. ‘She took the dog back, Sam gave her a lift home, you can’t turn that into some full-blown romance!’

  Beryl could.

  ‘No? I heard you can’t keep him away from that tea bar. Any excuse.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ demanded Lily. She didn’t want her mum being gossiped about. ‘Jean Crosbie, I suppose. She’s got half the WVS spying on Mum.’

  Beryl added another napkin to the pile that had passed her inspection.

  ‘She may have mentioned it.’

  As Dora had known she would, Jean Crosbie had been round to the Collinses’ like a shot. On the pretence of borrowing an ounce of suet, she’d come round the very night she’d seen Sam’s jeep in the street, and pointedly asked who Dora’s ‘man friend with the Army transport’ was. She’d also accosted Beryl next time she saw her to warn her to make the most of Dora, as – who knew? – she might soon be emigrating to Canada as a war bride. As usual with Jean, a rumour could be halfway to Nova Scotia before the truth had done up its shoelaces.

  ‘It’s rubbish,’ declared Lily stoutly. ‘Sam’s been by the tea bar a couple of times to say hello, that’s all.’

  ‘And the rest!’ scorned Beryl. ‘I suppose it’s the dog that wants to see your mum, is it? Pull the other one! He’s sweet on her!’

  Over the past few weeks, Lily had already considered this possibility, so that night she screwed up her courage and tried to find the words to ask.

  They were both in the kitchen, Dora doing her best to make a new Food Ministry recipe for oatmeal and lentil sausages palatable. Thank goodness for the veg bed – there was the remains of a leek and a bit of parsley to add some flavour.

  Keeping her eyes on the potatoes she was scrubbing, Lily tried to sound casual.

  ‘Have you seen anything more of Sam, Mum?’

  Dora continued chopping parsley. She knew exactly what Lily was asking, and why.

  ‘Look, Lily,’ she said, laying down the knife. ‘I know what Jean Crosbie’s been saying. She isn’t the only one with her spies in the WVS. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of explaining myself – in fact, it makes me smile to see her so aeriated, but I’ll tell you straight, love, because you deserve to know.’

  Lily dropped a potato into the pan of cold water at her elbow.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, bracing herself.

  ‘You can put any thought of anything between me and Sam right out of your head,’ said her mother. ‘What would be the point? He’ll be going back to Canada when the war’s over – that’s if he’s not sent away from here well before.’

  Lily considered this.

  ‘That doesn’t mean you couldn’t … well, get fond of each other while he is here. And even – well, he might ask you to go back to Canada with him!’

  Dora looked incredulous.

  ‘And you think I’d go? Me, who thinks a trip down the road to Dudley’s an adventure?’

  ‘Well, if you like him, Mum …’

  ‘Oh, Lily,’ Dora sounded both sad and wise. ‘Sam’s a nice, decent fellow, but there can be nothing between me and him. Look, this isn’t for spreading about, but this is what he’s told me.’

  Quietly she explained the sad story of Sam’s son’s death and his wife’s collapse.

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ Lily was moved. ‘That’s awful. Poor man.’

  ‘He’s stuck here in a strange country on his own. He just wants someone to talk to,’ said Dora. ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘Of course we do,’ Lily agreed.

  So Sam wasn’t a free agent. Lily wasn’t sure whether that made things simpler or more difficult, and whether she was relieved or disappointed for her mother. Maybe, if she met Sam properly, she’d have a better idea.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him over?’ she suggested. ‘If he’s – well, lonely, like you say, ask him for tea or something.’

  Lily received one of her mum’s knowing looks. ‘Oh, so you still don’t trust him? Or me? Want to give him the once-over?’

  ‘No!’ cried Lily, then backtracked. ‘Well, maybe I do. I’d like to meet him, anyway. Why not?’

  Dora gave a wry smile. ‘Sure you’re not still hoping for doughnuts?’

  ‘I’d like to meet him, that’s all,’ Lily repeated. ‘He sounds nice. If you like him, he must be nice.’

  ‘Did I say I liked him?’

  ‘You didn’t say you didn’t.’

  As Jim was always remarking, Dora thought, Lily had to have the last word.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ Dora turned back to her chopping board. ‘When the time’s right. Now get on with those potatoes, will you, and get them on the heat.’

  Dora thought long and hard about issuing an invitation to Sam. As long as they continued meeting on neutral ground – the tea bar – s
he could convince herself he was just a friend, and not someone she might actually become quite fond of. But even just thinking that, she knew she already was.

  He wasn’t a fantasy figure like Hugh had been. He was a real person, humble, unassuming, ordinary. Like her he’d been quietly living his life, working hard, not asking for much, until the war had come along and taken his son and knocked him – and his marriage – sideways. Those were the great unnumbered casualties of this war, Dora thought, wiping down the tea bar counter, the marriages that had been torpedoed in one way or another, smashed to smithereens by a death, a crippling injury, an affair or simply by the strain of being apart.

  Even so, she’d been truthful in telling Lily there could never be anything beyond friendship between her and Sam. He was far too honourable a person to contemplate it – and so was she.

  ‘Well, hello!’

  And there he was, suddenly in front of her, with Buddy dancing on his lead.

  Dora smiled and leant over the counter-flap.

  ‘Hello, Buddy!’ Buddy barked, then seemed to smile back, his pink tongue as always seeming far too big for his mouth. ‘And what have you been up to lately?’

  It was how their conversations always started – an enquiry about the dog.

  ‘Huh! You really want to know?’ Sam pulled a resigned face. ‘Took me the best part of twenty minutes to get him to come back after I let him out for a run this morning. In Buddy’s head he’s not a dog, he’s some Wild West sheriff with a brief to run every pesky squirrel he sees out of the county!’

  ‘Buddy! You’re a bad boy!’

  Buddy grinned and panted proudly at what he clearly took as a compliment.

  Dora poured Sam his usual ‘cawfee’ and passed it across to him. She watched as he sipped it.

  ‘Have you ever thought of trying tea?’ she asked.

  ‘Now why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Well, the coffee here isn’t very special.’ It was half coffee essence, half chicory, and pretty foul from what other customers had said, but he’d never complained. ‘It can’t be what you’re used to.’

  ‘True. But I come for the atmosphere not the coffee.’ He said it with an ironic grin – the tea bar was at a draughty side entrance to the station where the wind blew cigarette packets and old fish and chip papers around like tumbleweed.