Wartime Sweethearts (31 page)

‘I realise that,’ said Stan, ‘though that wasn’t really what I was thinking of. I was thinking back and realising there is nothing more exciting than at the moment you have to fight for your life. You do things you would never do in peacetime.’ His gaze dropped to his pipe.

The pale eyes of Mrs Hicks flickered as they alighted on Gilda who suddenly looked very troubled. Mary too saw the disquiet on Gilda’s face before she disappeared into the kitchen. She got up to go after her, but Mrs Hicks signalled for her not to. ‘She’s had a terrible time,’ she said. ‘There are moments when she has to be alone.’

Stan Sweet didn’t ask what the problem was with Gilda and neither did anyone else. Her husband wasn’t with her; that in itself was telling enough. This war was going to be worse than the last, he thought, and we’re going to have a fight on our hands.

He got up, went over to where Michael was standing and shook his hand. ‘I wish you all the best, young man. Take care of yourself.’

‘Thank you sir.’

Stan knew that winning was going to depend on the bravery of young men like Michael Dangerfield and Charlie, his only son. He’d almost lost his son in this war already, but Charlie would go back to sea. From the very first he’d wanted to go and do his bit. This young Italian-Canadian had the same attitude, one that could get him killed, though Stan fervently hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He’d already decided he liked young Dangerfield. He’d also noticed that Mary liked him too though she was doing her best not to show it.

Gilda came back from the kitchen with red-rimmed eyes which they all pretended not to notice.

Somehow the talk got round to gardening and how best to get as much fresh produce as possible from even the smallest patch of garden.

Mrs Hicks was all ears as Stan outlined his plans to plant those things he thought would be in shortest supply. ‘I know it’s cold outside,’ she said suddenly, ‘but perhaps we could take a walk around my poor vegetable patch. It’s a little run down thanks to my hip, but I would appreciate your advice – if you would like to accompany me that is.’

Stan said that he would. ‘Might even be able to give you a bit of a hand,’ he added, much to the twins’ surprise.

‘Good,’ said Bettina, leaning on the stick and rising unsteadily to her feet. ‘We can leave the younger generation to their own devices – and the dishes,’ she added with more than a glimmer of humour.

Ruby washed and Mary wiped. Frances was absorbed in playing snakes and ladders with Isaac and Marianne, the game spread out on the floor, the three children lying on their stomachs around it.

‘Did you get it for Christmas?’ Frances was asking them.

‘Sort of. We don’t celebrate Christmas. Not really,’ said Marianne.

Frances looked astounded. ‘How awful! Why is that?’

Isaac brushed his dark curls behind his ears, his attention fixed on the game spread out in front of them. ‘Oh. It’s because we’re Jewish,’ he said, matter of factly.

Gilda, who was putting away the pretty lace tablecloth and generally tidying the room, winced at her son’s comment, as though she didn’t want it mentioned.

‘I need to make the beds,’ she said, excusing herself from the room.

‘I know where everything goes,’ said Michael while taking the dried dishes from Mary. ‘Or at least, I think I do.’

His grin was infectious. It came to Mary that one day she would look back on this event, this passing of dishes from her hands to his, and know it was truly the moment when they’d fallen in love.

She gave a little gasp, hardly able to believe the unbidden thought. Where had it come from?

‘Whoops!’

Luckily Michael had a firm grip of the plate she’d been in the process of passing to him. She still had hold of it; that was when she noticed that their fingertips were touching.

Ruby came wandering out from the living room just as they were putting the last of the dishes away.

Mary went to use the bathroom, not really because she needed to, but just to give Michael the opportunity to be alone with her sister. She wanted them to be friends, but Ruby was still hostile, smarting because Michael’s baking had beaten hers.

‘Those mince pies were good,’ said Michael cheerfully as though he really hadn’t noticed Ruby’s sullen glare. ‘I was hoping there would be enough to take back to the boys, but nope! Seems we’ve ate the lot. Best I’ve ever tasted.’

Ruby had been aching for a fight, but Michael’s flattery had totally disarmed her. ‘Really? So you can’t make them better than I can?’

Michael continued as though he hadn’t noticed her tone. ‘Never said I could.’

‘I suppose you’ve already spent your prize money on drink and wild women,’ Ruby said accusingly.

‘No. I gave it to a deserving cause.’

‘Your wife?’

‘I haven’t got a wife, but I think you already know that. I gave it to Gilda. She came here penniless. She needs it.’

‘She’s very attractive. I suppose you and she—’

‘Are friends. Just friends.’

Despite him cutting her short, Ruby was unrelenting. ‘Hasn’t she got a husband to provide for her?’

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the children were still playing with their game. He closed the door between the kitchen and the front room so their conversation could not be overheard.

‘Gilda’s husband is in some kind of labour camp in Germany. He was arrested for anti-Aryan propaganda. That means he dared to say something that the local Nazi party didn’t like. Being a Jew is also something they don’t like. More and more are disappearing into these camps. We’re not quite sure what happened to him. Gilda was advised to get out of the country. It was quite a traumatic experience. That’s all I can say.’

Ruby was inclined to press for more details, but sensed none would be forthcoming.

Suddenly the door behind them opened and Isaac was there, his hair awry, his cheeks rosy red. He was holding on to the dog’s collar.

‘Felix wants to go out. He won’t stop clawing the door and he keeps growling.’

Michael shook his head and looked at the dog. ‘Felix, you’ve only just come in.’

The dog’s ears were erect, his eyes unblinking and his head was turned back into the front room where the door led into the hall where the front door opened into the garden. Sharp canine teeth showed when he growled, eyes fixed on the door, his head twisted at an awkward angle.

Michael’s amiable expression disappeared. ‘Okay, Felix. I get it. There’s somebody outside.’

Leaving Ruby behind him, he went into the living room craning his neck in an effort to see out of the window to a frosted world cloaked in mist and the dying light of a winter’s afternoon.

Michael instructed Isaac to shut the dog in the kitchen. Stan Sweet had come in from the garden and was now sitting comfortably with a brandy clasped in his hand.

Michael explained the problem. ‘The dog’s upset. There’s somebody outside. Leave it to me.’

The sound of knocking at the door set the dog barking even more furiously than before. Once he was sure Felix was under control, Michael opened the hallway door and then the front door.

The girls stayed with their father and Mrs Hicks. It had not escaped their notice that their dad and the widow got on very well indeed. Up until the interruption from outside, they had been discussing the planting of spring beans, though judging by the look in their eyes, there was something more interesting than beans going on.

‘I expect that’s the vicar’s wife,’ said Bettina reassuringly. She seemed totally casual that she might have an intruder. ‘She collected for the poor before Christmas. Now she’ll shake her begging bowl and tell me it’s to help people make a new start away from whatever sins they’re guilty of. Either that or the reform of some obscure cannibals they’re inclined to turn vegetarian.’

It was hard not to smile at her comments, though all eyes stayed fixed on the front door. The sound of men’s voices preceded its reopening. A blast of cold air came in before Michael Dangerfield, followed by another figure in dark navy blue.

Michael was grinning broadly. ‘I’ve got a surprise, folks. Looks as though Santa Claus is a day late!’

Behind Michael, his face half hidden by his navy blue hat, was the freckled face and cheeky grin of Charlie Sweet.

He was home!

Stan Sweet sat next to his son, his eyes shining with a mixture of pride, relief and unshed tears. His hand had settled on his son’s shoulder the minute he’d sat down and there it had remained. It was as though he were afraid his son would disappear if he removed it. It would take more than a few minutes, a few hours or even a few days for him to believe that this was not an illusion and that the flesh-and-blood Charlie really was home.

At the sight of him, Ruby had dashed to retrieve the cake she’d made for this special day. She rushed over to the bakery, grabbing the old toffee tin in which she’d been keeping it. She also grabbed a cake stand – not the best one they owned, but the one nearest to hand. She was sure Charlie wouldn’t mind, after all, they hadn’t really expected him this quickly.

Her hostility to Michael Dangerfield now forgotten, she ran back to Mrs Hicks’s and placed the cake on the stand in the centre of the table. Once everyone had remarked how wonderful it looked, she cut the first slice which went, of course, to Charlie.

‘Merry Christmas, Charlie,’ she said as she passed him the plate.

Everyone else wished him the same.

‘And a Happy New Year,’ added Frances who was sitting on the floor, one arm clasped around his knee.

‘Let’s hope so,’ he said, tousling her hair as he always used to do before he’d gone away.

While everyone remarked how nice the cake tasted, Stan noted that his son had gained a maturity he hadn’t possessed before. He had the look of a man who had seen things he would never have seen stuck in a village all his life. Stan could guess how terrible some of those sights might have been. He’d seen enough himself in the last war.

The voice of Bettina Hicks interrupted his thoughts. ‘You must have a secret supply of sugar,’ she said to Ruby who almost choked on a mouthful of cake, but quickly collected herself.

She had told nobody of her secret cache and she wasn’t about to do so now.

‘I happened to have some honey from last year,’ she lied.

She saw Mary frown. ‘I thought we’d used it all.’

‘Not quite all,’ she said cheerfully.

‘I can taste the sherry in this cream,’ her father remarked. ‘Or is it brandy?’

‘Both,’ said Bettina Hicks who had supplied the cream for the mince pies and winked at him. ‘Alf also liked a tot of sherry or brandy when the occasion deserved it. His supply of liquor has remained intact since his death. He would approve of it being drunk on such an occasion as this.’

Charlie was a bit thinner than when he’d left, but his face had a healthy tan, the kind that comes from facing a variety of weather and wind.

Michael was keen to hear of his exploits. ‘So how was it?’

Charlie sighed before draining the last of the tea from his cup. ‘No picnic,’ Charlie said, looking up at him with a hint of pride. Despite the smart uniform, it was him, Charlie, who had been in the thick of it. As yet the war hadn’t come home to roost like it had in the South Atlantic. ‘And it’s not going to be. The enemy is well armed and determined. We’ve got one hell of a battle if we mean to win it.’

‘We have to win it. Those people are monsters.’

The speaker was Gilda who had been quietly moving around refilling cups and passing out plates of cake and mince pies.

Charlie looked up at her, remembered the dark-eyed girl he’d noticed at the village fete and blinked. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I haven’t long arrived from London.’

‘You must have come for a short visit. I’m sure I saw you at the village fete?’

She nodded. ‘Ah, yes. I was here on a visit before I decided to move down.’

Because English was not her first language, she spoke very precisely in order that she might be better understood.

Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘I thought so.’

Stan Sweet gave his son’s shoulder a quick squeeze. ‘You can’t imagine how it feels to see you home, my boy.’

Charlie’s smile lit up his face. ‘You can’t imagine how good it feels to be home.’

‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ asked Gilda. The look in her eyes closely resembled that in Charlie’s. Despite the make-up it seemed she was blushing.

Charlie would have preferred something stronger, but couldn’t say no to this beautiful woman. ‘Yes. Yes, please.’

Mary noticed her brother’s eyes following the dark-eyed beauty before he glanced at the children and took another sip of his tea.

Ruby tried to force another slice of cake on him. ‘Come on, Charlie. You need filling up.’

Charlie grinned. ‘You’re trying to make me fat.’

Everyone laughed.

Charlie looked at his family and the others gathered. Only Michael and his own father could possibly know how he was feeling at this moment in time. Something momentous had happened to him. He’d experienced a situation that somehow set him apart from them all. Nothing would ever be the same again.

‘Son,’ said Stan. ‘Son.’ He couldn’t stop saying the word. ‘When we heard about the sinking of your ship, well, I don’t mind saying, I damned that battleship
Graf Spee
and damned the captain and all of his men too. Especially the captain, the black-hearted—’

‘He wasn’t black-hearted, Dad,’ Charlie interrupted. ‘He was only doing his job, just like we were doing ours.’

Stan was visibly affronted. To his ears it had sounded as though his son was defending an enemy captain.

‘He was out to kill you!’ Frances piped up. She had snuggled herself up close to her cousin, gazing up at him fondly and hanging on his every word.

Stan Sweet looked at his son in amazement. He’d come close to death and he’d despaired at ever seeing him again. Yet he was standing up for the enemy.

Charlie put his arm around Frances’s shoulders and hugged her. ‘No. He was out to sink the food cargoes coming up from South America; beef from the Argentine and grain from Brazil. His orders were to sink our food ships so our people would be starved and we would have to surrender.’