Secrets in Store

So, between mouthfuls – the chips were very good – Gladys did, relaying Jim’s idea about starting a Fowl Club and all the eggs it would produce.

‘And I thought hens only laid powdered egg now!’ grinned Bill. ‘So what else? What about inside the store? You said something about keeping the staff happy?’

‘Like Mr Churchill says, it’s all about keeping going and keeping cheerful.’

‘Morale, yeah. Always banging on about it.’

‘Yes.’ Gladys nodded eagerly. ‘So there’s going to be sports clubs, football, and netball, and cricket and rounders in the summer – and maybe a sports day, even! There’s going to be a doctor once a week, for free.’

‘What, for the twisted ankles and groin strains?’ asked Bill wryly. ‘Go on!’

‘And a barber coming in, and a hairdresser.’ Gladys, like Lily, had days when she despaired of her hair, though for different reasons – hers was mousy and unbendingly straight – so she was especially pleased about this. ‘On Wednesday afternoons,’ she added. ‘So in our own time – but very cheap.’

‘Blimey, I won’t recognise you next time! Gladys the Glamour Puss!’

Fearing she might have raised his expectations a little too high, Gladys blushed and looked down.

‘I do try to look nice for you, Bill. I mean, if I’d had a bit more notice today …’

Bill speedily backtracked.

‘And you do! You do already! I didn’t mean anything by it …’ Remorseful, he grabbed her hand. ‘Gladys. I truly didn’t … I didn’t mean … I love you just the way you are.’

The words had spooled from his mouth before he could reel them back, but as Gladys stared at him, he realised he didn’t want to, even if he could.

‘There, I’ve said it,’ he added quietly.

Gladys started to tremble. She turned their joined hands over, stroking the fine, almost transparent, hairs on his fingers. ‘Do you really?’

‘Blimey, give a bloke a chance,’ protested Bill, blushing. ‘I just said so, didn’t I? Want me to spell it out in Morse Code? Or flags?’

‘No, of course not!’

Gladys screwed up her courage. She’d wanted to say it for so long, but now the chance had come … Still, if Bill had managed it …

‘I love you too, Bill, I do, I really, really do. So much. I only didn’t say, because … oh, Bill.’

Leaving one hand in his, she sat back and put the other to her chest.

‘Ooh, my heart’s hammering! I’m sorry, I don’t think I can eat any more. Do you want the rest of my chips?’

At the Collinses’ that evening, there was another surprise, though perhaps on a slightly lesser plane.

There was a new delicacy on the table, something that had sat in the larder all day with Dora peeking at it occasionally as if it might explode.

‘They call it Spam,’ she said, as Lily cut into the thick fritter of bright pink meat on her plate alongside the cauliflower and potatoes.

‘Special Processed American Meat,’ said Sid, who knew everything, or managed to give that impression. ‘We’ve had it in the NAAFI since last year. But if it’s reached Hinton, I’m telling you, it really has arrived.’

‘Well,’ said Jim, chewing thoughtfully. ‘It’s a funny texture. Sort of slimy, like a face flannel. But it doesn’t taste too bad.’

‘And at least it brightens things up,’ added Lily.

The colourlessness of the wartime diet was as much a trial to her as its sheer repetitive blandness. Everything looked beige and tasted beige. Never mind moaning about vanished brands of knitting wool or soap, how she longed for a vivid orange or a banana. She’d even have sucked on a lemon.

Dora made no comment. She’d acquired this tin quite legally, but Ivy, with her many and various ‘contacts’ about which Dora never enquired (‘Don’t ask a question to which you don’t want to know the answer’ was another of her mottoes) had offered her up to three more, and she was seriously wondering, after the family’s reaction, whether to take her up on it. Best change the subject.

‘Still nothing from Reg in the post,’ she observed sadly.

‘And it’s been a whole month since they left,’ objected Lily, looking to Sid for his superior knowledge of shipping.

‘They’re probably not there yet.’ Sid took a swig of tea. ‘No news is good news. If they’d run into trouble, we’d have known about it by now.’

Indeed they would: it had been a dreadful winter at sea. Ever since last November, when they’d sunk the Ark Royal, the Germans had seemed unstoppable, and January had been one of the worst months for shipping since the start of the war. German U-boats had sunk more ships than there were days in the month – thirty-five in all.

‘Where should his ship have got to by now?’ asked Jim.

‘Should be well past the Cape,’ pondered Sid. ‘But they may have had to put in somewhere en route. Refuel, take on supplies, some mechanical fault …’

‘So why didn’t he write from there?’ demanded Lily. ‘He might know we’ll be desperate to hear!’

‘He might have been a bad boy and not allowed onshore. No, scrub that,’ Sid corrected quickly as Dora looked concerned. ‘Not very likely with our Reg, is it? But maybe someone else was and they all got confined to barracks, well, had to stay on board.’

‘That’s not very fair!’

‘Nothing’s fair in love and war, Lil,’ Sid chastised. ‘Or, if they were going to be in dock a while, they might have been carted to a camp upcountry. Where the only post’s a forked stick or smoke signals!’

Dora sighed. ‘We’ll have to be patient, then.’

‘Yes, you will,’ said Sid. ‘I dunno why you’re getting so excited. What’s he going to say when he gets there, anyway – “I can’t tell you where I am but there’s lots of sand”?’

‘And what would your letters say?’ Lily felt obliged to defend Reg. ‘“I can’t tell you where I am but there’s lots of water”?’

‘Come on, Lil! I hope I’m a bit better correspondent than Reg!’

It was true – Reg’s letters, short and infrequent, were unlikely ever to give Freda, their post girl, a hernia.

‘Well,’ said Jim, who was privy to the contents – Sid’s letters were generally read out loud – ‘I admit your last darts match sounded pretty gripping, but let’s be honest, the only thing these two really want to hear about is who you’re courting.’

This too, was true. With Sid’s good looks he’d never been short of girlfriends, and it was hard to believe he wasn’t ‘up with the lark, to bed with the Wrens’, as the saying had it.

‘Crikey, don’t spare my blushes, will you?’ Sid, unusually, seemed taken aback by Jim’s directness. ‘You know me, same as always, taking my chances at village dances.’

‘Still no one special, then?’ enquired Dora.

Sid might not like being put on the spot, but Lily was delighted. Jim was quite right. It was the question she – and her mum, she knew – had been dying to ask.

Sid opened his mouth to answer, but the back door opened, and a familiar voice called ‘Only me.’

Lily looked at Jim and Jim looked at Lily, but instead of the eye-rolling that Beryl’s arrival mid-meal (again!) might have caused, their eyes telegraphed concern. It didn’t sound like Beryl’s usual cheery greeting. Nothing like.

Dora twisted in her chair to call through to the scullery.

‘Beryl? Never mind your boots, come on through.’ So she was concerned as well. Normally it was strictly boots off at the door. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

Chapter 9

Poor Beryl. She was in a heck of a state.

‘It can’t be,’ she blubbered, as, tea abandoned, they all clustered around the chair by the fire where she’d been installed. ‘The baby’s due in a few weeks, and my Les won’t be here to see it come!’

Les had got his posting. He and his unit were being shipped out in a fortnight – and, like Reg, he wasn’t entirely sure where. All they knew was ‘overseas’.

Jim had quietly disappeared to the scullery, but now re-emerged. He tactfully put a cup of tea down at Beryl’s side.

‘Well done, Jim.’ Dora gave him an approving smile. ‘Sugared?’

Jim nodded. ‘One. And a bit.’

Sugar was precious, but if ever it could be sacrificed, it was now.

‘Never mind sugar.’ Sid went to his kitbag, undid it, and produced a half-bottle of rum. ‘Put her a nip of this in it. And let’s get some sense talked around here.’

They all looked at him.

‘Well, not by me! What do I know about marriage and babies? Over to you, Mum!’

As he spoke, he drew up the small rush-topped stool, lifted Beryl’s ankles, and placed it gently under her feet. Then, with a look at Jim that said ‘Danger! Waterworks alert!’ they both retreated to the safety of the dining table.

Dora poured a careful capful of rum into Beryl’s tea. She didn’t really approve of alcohol, and certainly not in the house, but in the circumstances … She stirred Beryl’s tea for her and handed her the cup.

‘Now look here, Beryl,’ she said. ‘You know what we do round here when someone’s in trouble. We all pull together. We did it last year, when you first found out you were expecting, and we’ll do it again. It’s a crying shame Les won’t be with you, but you won’t be on your own.’

Lily nodded vigorously.

‘The fact is,’ Dora continued, unconsciously echoing what Reg had said to Lily, ‘you’re not the only one. You’re far better placed than some, and far, far better placed than you might have been. You’ve got a good home, a good husband in Les, and you’ll have all the help and support you could wish for from Ivy, I know you will.’

‘And me and Mum,’ put in Lily. ‘Whatever you need. Gladys too, I bet.’

‘I know, I know …’ Beryl wiped her eyes with a sodden hanky. ‘You’ll think I’m stupid,’ she snuffled, ‘and I am, it’s not like I haven’t known it was coming, but I dunno, when it actually happens … I was in the phone box speaking to Les, and when he told me, I felt my legs just go from under me!’

Lily reflected that given the size she was, Beryl must have been pretty firmly wedged in the box anyway, so there was little or no chance of her sinking to the floor, but she gave her the benefit of the doubt. If you weren’t allowed a bit of poetic licence when you were pregnant, then when were you?

Beryl applied her hanky to her eyes again, sniffed, and tried to collect herself.

‘It’d mean a lot to me, Dora,’ she quavered, ‘if you’d be with me when the baby comes. Ivy’ll be there if she can, I know, but with Susan …’

‘You don’t have to ask, Beryl,’ Dora replied. ‘Take it as read.’

‘Thank you,’ Beryl said in a small voice. ‘You’re golden, you really are.’

Beryl’s appeal came as no surprise to Lily. For two plain-speakers forced together by circumstance, Beryl and Ivy got on surprisingly well, and Beryl showed an equally surprising patience with Susan. But Ivy knew her daughter-in-law: when it came to childbirth she was unlikely to be the grin-and-bear-it type. Ivy had pointed out that the sight and sound of Beryl in labour could frighten Susan into fits; Les had agreed, and had promptly booked Beryl into the local maternity home.

But Beryl was no fool either. In the short time since Les had told her about his posting, she’d obviously realised that encouraging words and forehead-swabbing, when it came to it, would be much more likely to come from the ever-practical but relatively more compassionate Dora.

‘If I could add one thing from the, er, male perspective?’

Sid was shuffling the cards, which had also appeared from his kitbag – he never travelled without them. A pile of matchsticks indicated he’d inveigled Jim into a game of pontoon. They all swivelled to look at him as he laid down the pack.

‘There’s no other way to put this, Beryl, but frankly Les did his bit last summer. Even if he was here, the maternity home’s no place for a bloke! He’d have most likely been down the pub if he’d got any sense.’

Dora shot him a look that would have quelled, if not felled, anyone less robust, but Sid, being Sid, got away with it. Beryl gave a damp smile.

‘You’re right there,’ she admitted. ‘He’s said as much!’

‘Exactly! So when you’re screaming in agony bringing the little one into the world, far better that he’s throwing up over the side on the high seas or in some miserable billet suffering as well, don’t you think?’

Lily had to hand it to Sid. Whenever she’d tried to make a joke of anything serious, like Reg’s posting or Jim’s medical, she hadn’t convinced even herself, but somehow, annoyingly, he managed it. Beryl even half-laughed.

‘Yeah – and serve him right!’ she sniffed. ‘I mean, he’s looking forward to the baby and everything, real excited he is, but even if he was here, it’s not like he’d be changing the nappies, is it, or doing the feeds?’

‘In my experience, not in a rain of pig’s pudding.’

Dora had pronounced, and after that, no one was likely to disagree.

Gradually the evening got its usual rhythm back. Dora swept Sid’s cards and matchsticks off the table – she didn’t approve of gambling, either, however harmless. Lily re-laid the cork mats and got out the pudding spoons – five of them, because Beryl bravely thought she might manage ‘just a bit’ of the blancmange that was on offer.

With Beryl accepting her second helping (typical!), the conversation turned to naming the baby. That was something that would have to be decided, surely, Lily asked, before Les went away? Or had they already chosen?

Boys’ names, it seemed, were still a subject of discussion – Ivy was pushing for Cuthbert, her father’s name, and Beryl was resisting – but she and Les had settled on a girl’s name – sort of.

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