Home for Christmas (20 page)

Of course, it was disappointing after the heady private delight of taking that important step into womanhood to arrive home to find that instead of finding her mother alone so that Drew could ask for permission to take Tilly out ‘officially’ on a proper date, not only were all three of the lodgers filling the small kitchen, and helping her mother to make an unusually late supper, but that two separate conversations were going on, and Ian Simpson was also there, despite the fact that it was gone 11 p.m.

‘Ian was on a late shift, and when he saw me putting the milk bottles out he asked if Dulcie was still up and could he have a word with her to see if Selfridges toy department have got any of the toys his children have put on their lists for Father Christmas,’ Olive explained.

‘Yes, and I’ve asked Ian if he would let my brother stay at his house when he comes up to London to see me whilst he’s on leave,’ Dulcie chipped in, throwing a casual, ‘And he can come and have his meals here, can’t he?’ in Olive’s direction so that she felt obliged to agree, whilst quickly looking at Tilly to see how her daughter was reacting to the thought of the return of the handsome young man she had had such an obvious crush on. However, when Olive saw the look that Tilly and Drew exchanged – a silent shared acknowledgement that their news would have to wait – she realised that Tilly was not going to be in the least concerned about Rick.

Of course, Olive wanted to know how the two young people, who had left number 13 earlier as nothing more than friends, were now returning looking at one another with dazzled starry gazes, but she could hardly say anything in front of the others.

‘You’ll like Rick, Drew,’ Dulcie told the young American. ‘Everyone does, and he’ll be company for you. Oh, unless of course you’re going home to America for Christmas?’

‘You did say that you might,’ Ian agreed.

‘I was thinking about it,’ Drew acknowledged, ‘but there’s so much going on here now . . .’

Again, that shared, love-struck look passed between Drew and Tilly, Olive saw. ‘ . . . that it makes more sense to stay.’

Makes more sense. Oh, but she’d tease him about using those practical matter-of-fact words, just as soon as they were alone together again, Tilly decided, mentally hugging to herself, the special message in the look Drew was giving her. Makes more sense, indeed! It wasn’t anything sensible he’d been saying to her when he’d been kissing her not ten minutes ago, and telling her that even a minute apart from her was a minute too long.

‘Cocoa, you two?’ Olive asked.

The manner in which her mother said ‘you two’ made Tilly give her a startled, flushed look as she realised her mother had guessed something was going on.

‘I’ll take my cocoa upstairs with me and drink it whilst I pack,’ Sally announced. Her train for Liverpool wasn’t until late tomorrow evening, but she had nervous butterflies in her tummy already at the thought of returning to Liverpool, though she was not going to allow them to deter her from what she believed she had to do.

Agnes stifled a yawn. She and Ted had met up after tea at the café close to the station, making a pot of tea stretch for nearly three hours that had been blissfully free of any air-raid warnings. Poor Ted was worrying about his sisters’ Christmas presents . . .

Seeing how preoccupied Agnes looked, Tilly said affectionately, ‘You’re very quiet, Agnes.’

‘I was just thinking about Ted’s sisters,’ Agnes told her. ‘Ted’s feeling bad because the little one has asked for a doll with real hair for Christmas, and the other one wants a dolly’s pram. Ted can’t afford anything like that, but he doesn’t want to disappoint them, so he’s been looking round to see if he can buy their toys second-hand. But with so many other people doing the same thing, he isn’t having much luck.’

‘We can all help him by looking as well, can’t we, Mum?’ Tilly offered.

‘We can,’ Olive agreed, ‘but, as Agnes has said, with so many parents doing the same thing I don’t think you’ll have much luck. It’s a pity we gave all your toys away, Tilly. You had a lovely baby doll, remember?’

‘Yes. Her eyes opened and closed and you knitted her some lovely clothes.’

‘I had a doll, but the minute Edith laid eyes on it she wanted it,’ Dulcie joined in, ‘and of course she ended up getting it.’ She tossed her head as the tale of childhood rivalry stirred old memories, reminding Dulcie of the fact that Edith been their mother’s favourite.

In the end, much to Tilly’s frustration, it was gone midnight before finally she and Drew were alone in the kitchen with her mother. Ian, much to Drew’s relief, had left earlier, saying he wanted to write to Barbara and the children before he went to bed.

Now, almost bursting with what she wanted to say, Tilly reached for her mother’s arm, and began, ‘Mum, there’s something we want to tell you.’

‘I rather thought there might be,’ Olive agreed, smiling slightly. Tilly might think of herself as a young woman but to her she was still her little girl, her feelings written as clearly in her expression for Olive to see as they always had been.

‘Tilly, I’d like to talk to your mom on my own,’ Drew announced before Tilly could say anything, adding formally, ‘If that’s all right with you, Mrs Robbins?’

Olive’s heart sank. Surely Drew wasn’t going to say he wanted to propose to Tilly? She certainly hoped not. Olive liked the young American, and she could see how Tilly felt about him, but Tilly was far too young and their relationship far too new, for that kind of commitment.

‘We’ll go into the front room,’ she said.

Tilly watched them leave the kitchen, feeling both proud of Drew for being so polite and proper, but at the same time not wanting to be excluded.

In the front room Olive sat down in one of the chairs, not relaxing but sitting on the edge of it, her ankles neatly crossed and her hands folded in her lap as she said quietly, ‘Please do sit down, Drew.’

‘I guess you’ve realised what’s happened,’ Drew told her as he folded his lean length into the other chair.

‘I can see that my daughter has stars in her eyes, like the young girl she is,’ was all Olive was prepared to commit herself to.

‘I asked Tilly tonight if I could take her out on a proper date, provided you gave your permission. That was all I planned to do. Nothing more, but things sort of got out of hand a little, and before I knew it I was asking Tilly if she’d be my girl,’ Drew admitted.

Olive exhaled shakily. It was a relief to discover that it was only as yet her permission for Tilly to be ‘his girl’ that Drew wanted.

‘Tilly is only eighteen,’ she pointed out nevertheless.

‘We’ve said we won’t rush things,’ Drew assured her. ‘and I promise you that Tilly will always be safe with me, in every kind of way. I won’t deny that as far as I’m concerned I’ve met the girl I want to be my wife, but I’m not about to rush Tilly or persuade her into something too soon.’

Olive believed him.

‘You’re the kind of young man that every mother hopes her daughter will bring home, Drew,’ she told him truthfully. ‘But war makes young people impatient and sometimes, because of that, they make decisions they end up regretting. I am prepared to agree that you can take Tilly out as your girl, but I don’t want the pair of you rushing into a more serious commitment, at least not yet.’

In the kitchen Tilly was too impatient to wait any longer, hurrying into the front room to demand, ‘Mum, you will let us, won’t you?’ before going to Drew’s side and reaching for his hand.

‘Your mom has said that I can date you, Tilly,’ Drew told her, ‘and that you can be my girl.’

‘Mum,’ Tilly said breathlessly, releasing Drew’s hand to rush over to Olive and hug her ecstatically.

Of course, after that the young couple had to be allowed to say good night to one another in the privacy of the narrow hall – without the light on – although Olive was reassured about her own judgement of Drew when Tilly reappeared in the kitchen after only a couple of minutes, her face flushed with that look of a girl who has just been very happily kissed.

Olive suppressed a small sigh. It both seemed a lifetime since she had felt the emotions that she recognised Tilly was feeling right now, and yet, at the same time, only yesterday.

‘Oh, Mum, I’m so happy,’ Tilly told her dancing round the kitchen. ‘It’s so funny really. Only this evening when Drew and I were walking to Fleet Street, I thought to myself how comfortable I felt with him and how lovely that was, not realising at all just what that meant. But then later, when he held my hand, I just somehow knew, straight away. It was so wonderful, as though everything had somehow clicked into place: so right that I should love him and that he should love me back, and that that had been waiting there for me to recognise it. Don’t you think that Drew is just the best and nicest person there could be, Mum?’

‘He’s a very pleasant young man,’ was all Olive would allow herself to say. ‘A young man who is sensible enough not to rush into something that’s too much too soon, Tilly.’

‘I know what you’re saying, Mum,’ Tilly smiled, ‘and we aren’t going to rush into anything. We’re both agreed on that.’

‘Good. I’m glad to hear it,’ said Olive.

‘I’m not going to say anything to the other girls yet,’ Tilly continued. ‘We are only going out, after all.’

Looking at her daughter glowing like a lit-up Christmas tree with her happiness, Olive suspected that their lodgers would guess what had happened within a week. Young love, how sweet and precious it was, but war could be cruel, as Olive knew only too well, and young lovers could end up with broken hearts and broken lives ripped apart by that cruelty. At least Drew wasn’t in uniform, Olive tried to comfort herself, and thankfully that meant that there would be no tearful pleas from Tilly for her permission to allow them to marry because ‘there’s a war on and we might only have now’.

The last thing she wanted was for her daughter to follow in her own footsteps to become a young bride and then a young widow. Married at eighteen, Olive had been only nineteen when Tilly was born.

Chapter Thirteen

Liverpool’s Lime Street station was so familiar and yet, at the same time, somewhere where she no longer felt comfortable, Sally admitted. She felt like that because of the memories already aroused by her coming back.

Her train had been slow-moving, stopping frequently, and filled in the main with young men in uniform, especially merchant seamen, no doubt travelling between the ports of London and Liverpool to pick up their next berth. The train had finally steamed slowly into the station just as dawn was breaking.

The city air smelled of the sea, the noise of the gulls overhead reminding Sally that seamen always said the gulls came further inland when the weather was due to turn bad. There was certainly a blustery wind, buffeting those who braved it; most of the people around her huddled into their coats to protect themselves from the icy sting of the rain that had started to fall.

To the west of the station were the docks and Liverpool bar, beyond which lay the Atlantic. The taste of salt sea air on her lips reminded Sally painfully of taking the ferry to New Brighton with her parents for childhood days out, her hands held tightly one parent on either side of her. A happy child, she had never questioned but simply accepted that happiness. What Morag had done, though, had stolen that happiness and those memories from her, overlaying them with the pain it had caused Sally to know that her father could forget her mother so easily.

Wavertree, where Sally had grown up, lay around three miles to the east of the city centre. Originally developed early in the twentieth century as a village on the edge of the city for the middle classes, it had now become part of the city itself. Yet to those who lived there at least, it remained slightly socially above the rest of Liverpool.

Sally’s mother had been an active member of her local WI, as well as on the church flower committee at their local parish church of the Holy Trinity. Sally had grown up in a sociable home with a mother who had encouraged her to join in various activities at the church and the local tennis club.

Her mother’s grave was in the graveyard of Holy Trinity church, and it was hard for Sally, as she waited for the bus to take her to Wavertree, not to think of the day of her mother’s funeral on this, the anniversary of her death.

By travelling overnight and arriving during the morning, Sally had planned to be able to return to London on an afternoon train rather than stay overnight in a city that now held only painful memories for her.

In her mother’s memory Sally had chosen to wear the clothes she had worn for her funeral – a black woollen dress under a three-quarter-length black swing coat. She could see herself now, standing in Lewis’s department store, staring blankly around, still unwilling to accept that her beloved mother was dead, whilst Morag – treacherous, deceitful, duplicitous Morag – had coaxed her into buying her dress and coat, acting out what Sally knew now had been a fictitious role of friendship.

What a gullible fool she had been, clinging to Morag in her grief, believing that Morag was truly her friend.

The bus arrived, lurching through a puddle to throw up a spray of grey-brown water, so that the waiting queue fell back to avoid it.

‘Ruddy driver,’ the woman standing next to Sally said grimly with a pronounced Liverpudlian accent. ‘He went into that puddle deliberately. Isn’t it enough that we’ve got ruddy Hitler bombing us without some ruddy bus driver soaking us as well?’

No war could dowse the Liverpudlian sharp sense of humour, Sally recognised as she waited her turn to step onto the bus, finding a seat at the back next to two amply upholstered middle-aged women both of whom were balancing worn shopping bags on their laps. Noting the shopping bags, Sally reflected that they must live in the Edge Hill area, not Wavertree. The ladies of Wavertree shopped with wicker baskets, not worn shopping bags. They wore hats and gloves, and in the main had their produce delivered from one of the many excellent local shops on the High Street, travelling into Liverpool perhaps once a week to meet up with friends for afternoon tea in Lewis’s and listen to the pianist there.

As the bus lumbered up Edge Road, Sally couldn’t help overhearing the conversation of the two women to the side of her. They were having a semi-heated discussion about which poultry stall holder in St John’s Market provided the best value for money when it came to a Christmas turkey. Another thing Liverpudlians were good at was speaking their mind, Sally reflected, glad to have the women’s conversation to distract her from the sombre and sad purpose of her visit.

By the time the bus finally trundled into Wavertree, it was almost empty. Sally deliberately got off a stop away from the parish church, feeling that she needed the time it would take her to walk there to compose herself for the ordeal she would be facing.

Walking down Woolton Road to its junction with Church Road, Sally could see the eastern end of the church ahead of her. Soon she would be alongside the graveyard. Her footsteps slowed. Inside her head she had a far too clear memory of that other November day when the rain had fallen from a leaden sky as steadily and unceasingly as her own tears as she sat between her father and Morag in the back of the black Rolls Royce funeral car following the hearse. On top of the polished wooden coffin, with its brass handles, the sight of the wreathes and crosses in hothouse red roses and white lilies woven into greenery, the flowers forced into life so that they too could die, had made Sally feel physically sick.

Their bishop had conducted the service, the vicar waiting to greet them just inside the gate to the churchyard. Just before they had got out of the car Sally had looked at her father and seen the tears on his cheeks. Meaningless tears cried for a wife he had quickly forgotten when offered the temptation of a new young second wife. How could he have done that? The church had been full, Sally remembered. It hadn’t comforted her, though. Instead she had been filled with anger that someone so well loved had been taken from those who loved her.

Sally had reached the gate to the church. Skirting the church itself, she made her way past the ancient mossy stones belonging to the dead of previous centuries. A gang of workmen passed her, carrying shovels. Sally’s heart somersaulted with the threat of nausea. They would be on their way to dig a fresh grave, or perhaps several fresh graves, given the harsh realities of the war.

Her mother’s grave lay beyond the old headstones in a quiet part of the cemetery that she and her father had chosen together, the plot large enough for both of them, only now, of course, he had a second wife to choose to lie with for eternity. Angry tears burned her eyes. Sally paused to rub them away and then froze, paralysed by shock and disbelief as she looked toward her mother’s grave and saw that it was not abandoned and neglected as she had expected, and that, right now, someone else was performing the task that should have been hers and tenderly laying flowers against the immaculately clean and well maintained marble headstone. Three familiar heads, two of them dark and one silver grey, were bent as though in prayer, whilst from the carefully wrapped bundle one of the three was carrying, a small arm and mittened hand emerged.

Her father, Morag and Callum, with the child Callum had told her about. They were the last people Sally had expected to see here. The last people she had wanted to see here. They had come to the graveyard just as she had to mark the anniversary of her mother’s death. It was too much for her to take in, too much of a shock, too much of an intrusion. She felt an unbearable agony, not just of grief but also of anger, that they would do such a thing. What right, what place did they have here, after what they had done? And to bring that . . . that child. Anger, bitter and hot, burned its way through Sally’s veins.

As she watched, Callum, tall and strong-looking in his naval uniform, placed his arm around her father’s stooped shoulders, whilst Morag rested her head against her father’s shoulder. A wave of fierce pain stabbed through Sally’s heart as she witnessed their closeness. That was her father, now part of a family group from which she was excluded and to which she was an outsider. Her father standing looking down at her mother’s grave with the treacherous friend who had now taken her place.

They had their backs to Sally as they stood beside the grave, and there was no reason for them to turn towards her. They had plainly come to the plot from the other side of the church and could return that way, but whilst her concentration was drawn against her will to the baby Morag was holding, for some reason Callum turned round. They looked at one another. Sally couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, she could hardly even breathe. All her faculties seemed to have telescoped into a paralysis that held her rooted to where she was standing.

She saw her father and then Morag, alerted by Callum, both turn towards her. Every tiny movement was recorded by her brain in cruel detail as she saw Morag reach for her father’s hand and hold it tightly, his free arm going round the baby, the three of them forming a bond, united against her.

She heard Callum calling her name, the sound picked up and tossed by the keening wind so that it seemed to have a note of stark anguish to it.

That sound broke the spell that was holding her. Sally turned on her heel, starting to walk away and then to run as she heard Callum calling to her again. This time the sound closer. A quick look over her shoulder showed her that Callum was coming after her. He must not catch her. He must not speak to her or touch her. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear to have anything to do with any of them. In London she had mentally criticised them for what she had imagined would be their neglect of her mother’s grave, but now Sally found that she could not endure the thought of them going anywhere near it. To have seen Morag, that traitor, laying flowers on it was sacrilege of the worst kind. A sob tore at Sally’s lungs as she started to run faster. There was a bus at the bus stop, just starting to move off. Sally put on a final spurt of speed, reaching for the bus’s hand rail and swinging herself up onto the platform, the effort pulling at the muscles in her arm and earning her a shaken head of disapproval from the conductor.

Through the back window of the bus Sally could see Callum standing watching the bus disappear. She had escaped from him, from them, but she would never be able to escape from her memories or the pain they caused her, Sally acknowledged as she paid her fare.

Luckily the bus was going back to the city centre, even if the route it was taking was a rather roundabout one. The ride was long enough for the stretched muscles in Sally’s shoulder to have started to ache by the time she got off at the bus station to make her way through the busyness of St John’s Market as she headed for Lime Street station.

The bag on her arm, containing the things she had brought with her to tidy up the grave, added its weight to the ache tormenting her heart.

How dare Morag have assumed the right to tend the grave of the woman she had supplanted, Sally thought bitterly as she waited for the London train, her normally logical brain overwhelmed by the intensity of her emotions. And taking that baby, as well, adding insult to the injury she had already done to Sally’s poor mother. Her mother had loved children, especially babies, her face softening whenever she held one.

Why had Callum called out to her and tried to stop her? What had he hoped to achieve? After all, she had told him how she felt. Had he perhaps wanted to force her to witness her father’s new happiness? His new child? His new daughter, Sally recognised, remembering her brief glimpse of that pink-mittened baby hand.

The train Sally had been hoping to catch was cancelled, and it was over an hour before the next one arrived, by which time Sally felt chilled to the bone and sick of the taste of stewed lukewarm tea. When the train did arrive, as it slowed into the platform the carriages looked as though they were already full, despite the large number of people, especially soldiers in uniform, waiting to board it.

‘Looks like it’s going to be standing room only,’ a young woman in a smart WRNS uniform told Sally ruefully. Both her appearance and her accent suggested that those who said that the majority of girls who went into the WRNS were middle- and upper-class were correct, Sally decided. She nodded in acknowledgement of the Wren’s comment, whilst trying not to think that it was girls like these, in their immaculate uniforms, that Callum would be mixing with now that he was in the navy. After all, why should she care who Callum mixed with any more? She didn’t.

A few seconds later, one of the group of soldiers clustered round the train door saw them and said something to the others, which had them falling back to form an untidy guard of honour to allow Sally and the Wren onto the train first. Sally hesitated, not sure if their preferential treatment was due to good manners or the smart uniform and undeniably pretty face of the Wren, who had now stepped past the men as though doing nothing more than accepting her due, whilst Sally followed in her wake, offering a thank you for them both.

It was a corridor carriage with compartments off it. Their ascent onto the train might have been swift, but their passage along the corridor certainly wasn’t, packed as it already was with other passengers. They had to inch their way along it, Sally’s heart sinking at the thought of having to stand, perhaps all the way to London.

However, it seemed that their luck was in because another young man, this time in RAF uniform, spotted them as he stood outside a non-smoking compartment, smoking a cigarette. He turned to look into the compartment, calling out as he did so, ‘Pretty girls approaching, chaps – two seats required, and pronto.’