Christmas Wishes (7 page)

Everyone obeyed with alacrity and very soon the chicken was carved, the vegetables, bread sauce and gravy were served, and Alex was holding up the wishbone. ‘Who wants to see if they can win themselves a Christmas wish?’ he demanded. ‘Shall we say the two youngest may have a tug of war over this?’ He turned to his daughters. ‘Can you remember how to treat a wishbone?’ he asked. ‘You’re only allowed to use one of your little fingers … hook it into the wishbone like this … and the one who gets the larger piece may have a Christmas wish.’

‘We’re too old for baby games …’ Gillian was beginning, when Joy interrupted, giving her sister a meaning look. Nothing pleases Grandma more than to see us quarrelling or behaving badly, the look said. So come on, twin, play the game for Daddy’s sake if nothing else.

‘Why not? When we were at the Dodmans’, it was whoever got the silver threepenny bit in the pudding who had the wish,’ she said. ‘Come on, Gilly, be a sport!’

‘Well, if you ask me …’ Gillian began, then saw her grandmother about to give tongue and changed her mind. ‘All right; give me a hold of it,’ she said. ‘And then let’s eat, ’cos it strikes me a Christmas dinner shouldn’t be allowed to go cold!’

Grandma nodded grimly and picked up her knife and fork in a very businesslike manner whilst the girls tugged at the slender wishbone until it broke, Gillian crowing victoriously as she displayed the larger piece, quite forgetting that she had thought the ritual babyish a few minutes before. ‘Go on, then, have your wish,’ Joy said, smiling at her twin’s triumph. She picked up her knife and fork and began to eat. ‘And if I find the silver threepenny bit in my pudding …’

‘… you’ll choke on it,’ Gillian said, laughing. ‘Then when we’ve finished our dinner you and I will wash up and clear away and the oldies can have a snooze in front of the parlour fire. And then we’ll open our presents!’

‘I refuse to be counted as an oldie,’ Mrs Clarke said, winking at Alex. ‘So I’ll give a hand with the washing-up whilst you two young ’uns put away. Then we’ll lay the table for tea with the crackers your aunt and uncle brought and bring out the Christmas cake, and after that we’ll talk about opening presents.’

There was a groan from her youngest listeners, but Alex said placidly that good things would always wait, and got to his feet. ‘And this evening, after the twins have gone to bed, we’ll have roast chestnuts and a little glass of something hot,’ he said. ‘Go on, girls, start clearing away. And don’t let Dilly get a whiff of the chicken bones; I believe they’re bad for dogs!’

‘It was the best Christmas ever,’ Gillian said sleepily as the twins climbed into their beds and snuggled down, for it was a bitterly cold night. ‘Even Grandma was nicer than usual, and Auntie Serena is a darling. How she stands Grandma …’

‘It’s a good thing she does, though, or Grandma might have to come and live with us,’ Joy said with a strong shudder. ‘I once asked Auntie Serena how she put up with Grandma and she said she could do so easily so long as they lived next door to one another and did not share the same house. She said she can always walk away at the moment.’

‘Well, good for her,’ Gillian said. ‘And now let’s go to sleep or we’ll not be able to enjoy the pantomime tomorrow. Incidentally, what did you wish for when you found the threepenny bit?’

‘M.y.o.b.,’ Joy said immediately. ‘Come to that, what did
you
wish for when you got the wishbone?’

Gillian snorted. ‘Shan’t tell you,’ she said. ‘Nosy parker! Actually, if you really want to know, I wished you had a few more brains so you could come to St Hilda’s with me. Wasn’t that altru … altruis … nice of me, I mean? Oh, and I had a little extra wish whilst I was about it. I wished I was beautiful, with gleaming black hair and dark eyes and big bosoms. Now tell me what you wished!’

‘I wished I might be a fireman when I grow up,’ Joy said wistfully. ‘A fireman like Daddy, of course. I know it isn’t allowed now, but by the time I’m twenty or thirty …’

‘Oh, you!’ Gillian said, pretending to smother a chuckle in the bedclothes but making very sure, Joy realised, that her twin heard her amusement. ‘You could be in Control, mind, like our mother was, but I suppose that isn’t good enough for my thick twin; she’s got to be on the hose, dragging it in and out of burning buildings, dodging falling masonry, climbing the ladder to rescue folk trapped on the first floor …’

‘Shut up!’ Joy growled. ‘I know it’s dangerous and very hard work but I wouldn’t mind that. And wanting to be a fireman is a good deal better than wanting to be perishin’ beautiful. Coal black hair and big bosoms indeed! Some chance, Gillian Lawrence!’

‘Both will come to me in time,’ Gillian said with dignity. ‘You can dye hair, you know, and bosoms grow – sort of pop out – when you’re older. And if you get out of bed and try to hit me I’ll scream for Daddy or Mrs Clarke, so there!’

When Gillian awoke on the day after Boxing Day her first thought was of the pantomime they had seen the previous evening. The tickets had been Grandma’s Christmas present to Alex and his daughters, though it had been Auntie Serena’s idea, of course. Grandma’s idea of a Christmas present was to hand over a box of handkerchiefs which someone had given her the previous year, or a pair of felt slippers, usually several sizes too large. But on this occasion, thanks to their aunt, Grandma’s present of three tickets to the pantomime had been a splendid treat.

They had gone to the Empire Theatre to see
The Queen of Hearts
with Jimmy O’Dea. Because the Dodmans had never taken them to the theatre, Gillian and Joy had had only the haziest recollection of what a pantomime was all about and this, if anything, had increased their excited anticipation, which had been amply rewarded. Gillian, far more conscious of being thirteen and a half than her sister, had watched Joy enter enthusiastically into the spirit of the story, bouncing up and down in her seat yelling ‘Look behind you!’ and almost splitting her sides with laughter whenever the Dame appeared on the stage.

After the show they had gone home to have a supper of leftovers, or so Alex had warned, but when they had reached No. 77 it was to find Mrs Clarke in their kitchen, just withdrawing from the oven a large golden-topped pie. ‘It’s only what was left of the chicken and ham, and a good deal of potato,’ she had said, smiling at Alex. ‘But it’s an icy night and so I thought it would be more welcome than cold meat.’

‘You put me to shame, Mrs Clarke,’ Alex had said apologetically, unwrapping his scarf and taking off his navy serge coat. ‘If I’d thought, I’d have bought you a ticket for the pantomime and we could all have gone together.’

‘Nonsense!’ Mrs Clarke had said briskly. ‘Why should you do any such thing? The tickets were a present from old Mrs Lawrence, so that you could have a family outing. I’ve been perfectly happy cooking the pie and I’ll be even happier to share it with you.’

It had been a wonderful ending to a wonderful evening, Gillian thought now. Joy had insisted upon relating the plot of the pantomime and most of the jokes to Mrs Clarke, who had proved to be a most satisfactory audience, laughing and gasping in all the right places. ‘I’m going to be an actress when I grow up,’ Joy had assured them as they had begun to clear away the meal. ‘If I’m not a fireman, that is.’

‘You’re daft, you are,’ Gillian had said, with a mixture of amusement and scorn. ‘Shall we walk you home, Mrs Clarke, or will Daddy do that?’

‘Daddy will do it while you two wash up,’ Alex had said. ‘And as soon as you finish, off to bed with you, or you’ll be too tired to get my breakfast tomorrow morning.’

‘Are you on early shift tomorrow, Daddy?’ Joy had asked anxiously. ‘If so, you’ll be pretty tired yourself. Do let us walk Mrs Clarke home …’

Alex had laughed but shaken his head. ‘No, no, I’m on the night shift,’ he had said reassuringly. He had taken Mrs Clarke’s coat and helped her into it, though she had protested that no one need walk her home.

‘It’s only a step,’ she had reminded them. ‘I can be home in five minutes or less.’

‘I dare say you could, but it’s after eleven at night and the pavements are icy. If you were to slip …’

‘Oh, very well, if you insist,’ Mrs Clarke had said, turning to the children, who were starting to wash up the supper things. ‘Back to normal tomorrow, girls!’

Now, lying snugly in her bed, Gillian reviewed the day ahead. Because Alex would be on call all night, he would have a rest after lunch, so she and Joy would make themselves scarce for the afternoon. After that, she meant to get back into her study routine, since she was desperately keen to catch up with her future classmates at St Hilda’s.

Sighing, she sat up on one elbow and looked at the face of the little alarm clock on the small table between the two beds. Even as she did so, Joy sat up too.

‘Whazza time?’ she asked sleepily. ‘Oh, I’ve dreamed all night about the pantomime … I wish we could go every night.’

‘It’s time to get up,’ Gillian said cruelly, for in fact they had no need to leave their beds for another half-hour. Joy immediately began to throw back her bedclothes and Gillian laughed and admitted she had been teasing. ‘It’s seven o’clock,’ she said, ‘and since school doesn’t start for another week …’

‘You beast!’ Joy squeaked. She threw her pillow at her twin’s head, then produced the paper hat which had come from her cracker on Christmas Day and plonked it on her head. ‘What’ll we do today? I know you’ll want to study this morning, and as Daddy’s on nights we’d best do any shopping this afternoon so the house will be nice and quiet and he’ll be able to have a proper sleep. Oh, I might as well get up because I’m wide awake now.’ As she spoke, Joy slid out of bed and padded across to the window, wincing as her feet touched the cold linoleum. She twitched the curtain back. ‘There’s a hell of a nasty wind blowing and it’s raining, or sleeting; thank heaven we haven’t got to go out this morning,’ she said, returning to her bed. She sat down upon it and reached for her slippers. ‘Bags I the bathroom first.’

The day went much as the girls had planned. Gillian studied in the morning and after they had had their lunch and Alex had departed for a snooze, they went shopping. At their father’s suggestion, they bought a recipe book for Mrs Clarke to thank her for cooking their Christmas dinner. ‘Of course most of the things in the book are on ration now, or unobtainable,’ Gillian remarked, leafing through it, ‘but that won’t always be the case; everyone says rationing will begin to ease off when the weather improves.’

‘Which isn’t yet by a long chalk,’ Joy said gloomily. She had just spent her last sweet coupons – as had Gillian – to buy Grandma a quarter-pound box of Black Magic chocolates to thank her for the theatre trip. ‘I wish we could just post the chocolates through her letter box and then come straight home. But Daddy would be livid if we did that.’

‘No, we’ve got to go in, but we needn’t stay long because the weather’s so frightful,’ Gillian pointed out. ‘I just hope the old devil doesn’t ask us to tea. Last time she did she gave us Marie biscuits whilst she gobbled a huge slice of Battenberg cake, saying rich food was bad for children.’

‘She won’t ask us to tea because the weather’s so appalling,’ Joy said hopefully. ‘If you ask me it’ll snow before morning.’

The two girls had done all their shopping and dropped it off at No. 77. Now they were queuing patiently for a tram which would take them right across the city to their grandmother’s street. Despite upturned coat collars, thick scarves and gloves they were beginning to feel chilly as the sleet was blown into their faces and the gale tried to snatch the hats from their heads. Gillian was about to suggest that they should leave delivering Grandma’s chocolates until the following day when a tram drew up beside them. A quick glance at the destination board told them that it was the one they wanted and they hurried aboard. ‘Not long now and we can hand over the chocs and head for home,’ Gillian said cheerfully, giving her sister’s gloved hand a quick squeeze. ‘Poor old Joy! I know how you hate the cold, but it’s warmer in here than outside and soon enough we’ll be back in our own kitchen putting the kettle on for a nice hot cup of tea.’

Chapter Four

As Joy had predicted, the weather showed no sign of improvement, and after only a few hours of fitful sleep that night she was woken by the sound of hail lashing against the windowpane, driven by a howling wind. For a few minutes she lay on her back in the small bed, listening to the storm outside and mulling over the events of the last few days, until she realised, in the way one does, that her sister, too, was awake.

She sat up on one elbow. ‘Gillian?’ she whispered. ‘Haven’t we had the best Christmas ever? Oh, we used to have fun wi’ the Dodmans, and the Goodys’ Christmas party was grand, but it wasn’t the same. Why, even Grandma didn’t manage to spoil it, though I thought she would. But she seemed pleased with everything, especially the chocolates and the embroidered hankies …’

‘She thought we’d embroidered them ourselves,’ Gillian hissed, giggling. ‘I opened me mouth to tell her different but I caught Daddy’s eye and saw him giving a little shake of the head, so I said nothing. They really were pretty, those hankies, even though they were second-hand – we must have washed them five times at least – so she were right to be pleased.’

‘And Auntie Serena liked the sachets of lavender to put in her underwear drawer,’ Joy hissed back, then spoke in her normal voice. ‘Why ever are we whispering? We can’t disturb Daddy because he’s on Watch, and though Mrs Lubbock says knock on the wall if we need her when Daddy’s on nights, I reckon it would take a regiment of fellers playin’ the trombone to wake her.’

‘Oh, I expect she’d come thumping round to the back door if we screamed at the tops of our voices …’ Gillian was beginning when both girls heard the sound of the fire bells reverberating through the storm. With one accord they leapt out of bed and made for the window, knowing that if they leaned out and looked to their right they would probably see the fire engines, fully manned, emerging from the station. Alex would be riding shotgun, as he called it, sitting next to the driver – Chalky or Fred Finnigan – and ringing the bell, a task the girls knew he greatly enjoyed, and though he would not approve of them leaning out of the window on such a wild night, Gillian thought – and knew Joy thought also – that to see the engines charging past, with all their Blue Watch friends aboard, was worth the telling-off they would probably get when their father returned home.