Avalanche of Daisies (10 page)

‘D'you think she will?' she asked as they set off, arm in arm, for Rag's Yard. ‘Oh she will, won't she?'

‘Leave her to me,' he advised, ‘an' I'll see what I can do.'

Aunt Becky was sitting by the fire, with a sheet of newspaper on her lap, carefully peeling potatoes for their evening meal and gathering the peelings into the paper ready for the pig-bin. But she put down her knife and got up at once when Norman walked through the door.

‘'Lo Norman,' she said. ‘Thass a nice surprise. What's brought you round?'

He came straight to the point. ‘I got a favour to ask you.'

She gave him one of her long shrewd looks, her face fox-sharp. ‘Oh yes?'

So he told her, speaking slowly and reasonably, and she listened and nodded. And when he'd finished and Barbara had agreed that everything he said was true, she stood by the table for a long time and pondered.

‘Well I don't know,' she said at last. ‘I thought you was going to marry Victor.'

‘That was boy an' gal stuff,' Barbara told her.

‘You told him, hev you?'

‘Not yet.'

‘Poor boy. He'll be ever so upset.'

‘He'll git over it!' Norman said, answering before Barbara could say something she'd regret. ‘Worse things happen at sea. So what about this ol' form?'

Becky frowned. ‘Maudie won't like it.'

‘She'll come round to it,' he said, with perfect confidence. ‘She ain't axactly 'pposed to it. She'd uv come round to it gradual. You know that, now don't you? In her own time sort uv thing. You know how she is. Onny they ain't got the time to wait for her to do it. Thass the long an' the short uv it.'

‘When's he going?' Becky asked.

‘Matter uv weeks,' he told her. ‘No more. We're all goin', one way or the other with that ol' Second Front a-comin'. I shall be off mesself tomorrow.'

‘Again?' she mourned. ‘I thought you was home for weeks.'

‘Weeks is up,' he told her cheerfully. ‘So there you are. You gonna send a poor sailor off to sea happy an' content or hain't you? Orl you got to do is sign this ol' form. What d'you think?'

She sighed, gave him another one of her looks, frowned, sighed again. But she picked up the form. ‘I s'pose so,' she said. ‘Seein' thass for you. I wouldn't uv done it for no one else mind. I hain't at all sure thass right.'

He threw his arms round her and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. ‘'Course thass right, you dear ol' thing. Hain't I jest told you?'

As a pen was found and the form was signed and shaken dry, the clock on the mantelpiece tinged half past six. Barbara looked up at it, surprised that so much had happened in such a short time. ‘Thanks Aunt Becky!' she said. ‘You're a brick.'

‘I'm a fool to mesself,' Becky said. ‘I onny hope I don't live to regret it.'

‘I'd better be off,' Norman said. ‘Or the ol' lady'll be after me for bein' late.'

‘I'll walk you out the yard,' Barbara said. Which she
did so that she could hang on to his arm and kiss him goodbye and tell him he was the best brother in the world.

‘Write that ol' letter,' he reminded her.

‘Don't you worry,' she said, earnestly. ‘That'll be the first thing I do.'

The letter was dropped into Steve's hand just before he went on duty the next morning. He answered it there and then, telling her not to worry and to leave everything to him. Then he left the hut, still digesting the news. He couldn't believe any mother could be so cruel as to refuse consent, let alone Barbara's. Just as well her aunt obliged. And just as well his old darlings were sensible.

His sensible mother was hard at work in the butcher's shop when he came breezing in on Wednesday morning. He thought she looked rather tired, but she cheered up at once when she saw him and giggled and protested when he lifted her off her feet to kiss her. Which delighted her customers. ‘This your boy then, Mrs Wilkins?'

‘Soppy thing!' she laughed, admiring him. He looked very brown and very dashing, with his beret on sideways, his battledress unbuttoned, his tie all anyhow. He hasn't changed a bit, she thought. All that nonsense about getting married
was
a joke. Thank God for that. ‘Put me down do you daft happorth!'

He lowered her to the ground, grinning at her. ‘When's Dad home?'

‘Should be there now,' she told him. ‘He's on late turn.'

‘Perfect!' he beamed. ‘See you teatime.' And he kissed her again and was gone.

‘Always in a rush, these young things,' one of the customers said. ‘Can't wait fer anything.'

‘That's the war,' another chipped in. ‘I mean, what's the point a' waitin' when there's a war on? We might
all be dead by termorrer, let's face it. Live life while you can, that's what I say.'

‘Gaw dearie me!' the butcher said, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘You're a cheerful lot this morning! Now then, Mrs Harris, what can I do you for?'

Fried onions, Heather thought, as she weighed out half a pound of scrag-end for Mrs Harris. And her mind leapt forward to the scene there would be round her table that evening, the three of them together again, just like old times, three plates, three bottles of beer. Oh it
was
good to have him home.

But when she got back to Childeric Road, he wasn't there. Bob had put the potatoes on to boil and was sitting in his armchair in the corner reading the paper and looking a bit sheepish but there was no sign of Steve.

‘Did you see him?' she asked.

Bob nodded. ‘Yep. Caught me on the 'op. I was still in my pyjamas.'

She took off her coat and put on her apron, tying the strings firmly round her waist. ‘I hope he's not going to be late for supper,' she said. ‘It'll spoil if he is.'

Bob looked more sheepish than before. ‘No, no,' he said. ‘He should be back directly.'

‘I'll get on with the onions then.'

But when the meal was cooked and ready to serve and her lovely Steve finally came bursting through the door, he hardly gave the onions a sniff.

‘It's all fixed,' he said. ‘13th a' May, half past ten. I know it's a bit early but it's the only space they had. There's a rush on. Anyway, I've booked the hall, an Charlie's going to take photos, an' I went round to Aunty Mabel and Uncle Sid. Didn't see him but she was there an' it's all OK. She can stay there Friday night. They're going to put their camp bed in with the girls. Bit of a squash but it'll be all right for one night. The girls came in from school while I was there an' they say they'll see to the flowers. So it's just the invites, that's
all. I got two sets a' cards, with wedding bells on.' And he took them out of his tunic pocket and laid them on the table beside his father's plate. ‘I thought they'd do.'

‘May the 13th?' Heather said weakly. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be true.

‘That's the day,' Steve said and gave her a smile of such rapturous happiness it made her heart contract to see it. How could she tell him off when he looked like that? But she had to say something.

‘And where's it going to be?'

‘Here. In the Town Hall.'

She felt giddy. Why here? Weddings were supposed to be at the bride's place. And why in such a rush? What was going on? She took a breath to steady herself and tried another tack. ‘Don't we have to give consent?'

‘Yes,' he said cheerfully scathing about it, ‘if you ever heard anything so barmy. I'm old enough to die for King and Country apparently, but not old enough to get married unless my daddy says so. Don't worry. Dad's seen to it.'

So that's why he was looking sheepish, Heather thought, and turned towards him, her face stern with rebuke. But he was wearing his warning expression.

‘Her name's Barbara,' he said quickly, ‘an' before you ask, he hasn't brought us a snap or anything but she's gorgeous.'

‘She would be,' Heather said.

Her sarcasm was lost on Steve. ‘There wasn't time for snaps,' he explained, all smiles. ‘It's all been a bit of a rush. We haven't got much longer, you see Mum. It could be any day now. I was surprised I got leave, to tell you the truth.'

I can't deny him, Heather thought. Not when he says things like that. He's making a terrible mistake and he'll live to regret it but we'll have to let it happen. ‘Tell us while we're eating supper,' she said, suggesting him to the table. ‘I got liver an' bacon.'

‘You're the best mum in the world,' he said.

So he went back to King's Lynn with everything arranged to his happy satisfaction and that Friday evening Barbara handed in her notice. A fortnight later, with all her worldly goods packed in Becky's battered suitcase, and all his army kit packed in a standard army kitbag, they were on their way to London and their new life.

The next fifteen hours passed in a blur. The train to London was crowded with servicemen, every seat taken, string racks crammed to the ceiling and with so many kitbags and cases piled on the floor and so many people squashed together in the corridor that Steve could barely find a space for them both to stand in. Not that they cared. Travelling was always uncomfortable in wartime. You had to expect it. They were together and that was all that really mattered. When the train swayed over the points, he could put an arm round her waist to hold her steady, when a sudden jolt threw her against his chest, she could stay where she was until the roll of the rails pulled them apart again. Desire carried them sensuously from moment to moment.

‘By this time tomorrow,' he said, brown eyes lustrous, ‘we shall be married.'

Fields of green corn and sugar beet spread like a dappled sea beyond their criss-crossed window, clumps of trees whooshed by, the wheels beat their familiar rhythm over the rails, fiddledy-dee fiddledy-dum. By this time tomorrow we shall be married. They stopped at Cambridge and more passengers squeezed into the throng so that they were pushed even closer together. The air was blue with cigarette smoke. By this time tomorrow we shall be married.

Then they were racketing through London, past rows of dishevelled back gardens and terraces of soot-stained houses, stolid under slate roofs the colour of battleships. It wasn't long before Barbara noticed the gaps and the piles of rubble.

‘Is that the bombs?' she asked, awed by how many there'd been.

‘That's the bombs,' he told her grimly. ‘Don't worry. They'll pay for it.'

‘Too right,' an Australian soldier agreed. ‘You're with the Desert Rats, ain'tcher mate?'

Steve agreed that he was, proudly, and was soon deep in a conversation that rapidly involved all the soldiers and airmen around them.

Barbara didn't understand what they were saying but she felt honoured to be in their company. Fighting men, she thought, the ones who are going to win this war. And she felt such pride and terror at what that implied that it made her chest ache. She was quite relieved when they pulled into Liverpool Street station and the talk had to stop.

They struggled onto a wide platform, joined the great crowd of blue and khaki figures all moving in the same direction, emerged into a street so huge and dusty and full of people that for once in her life she was glad to have an arm to cling to.

A bus took them through the City – such buildings! – and over London Bridge – imagine! – to a place where trams clanged along the middle of the road one after the other in a long wine-red convoy and there were cars and lorries everywhere and people were talking in quick rough voices in an unfamiliar English and all sorts of other languages she couldn't understand. A tram buzzed them through endless streets to New Cross, which looked exactly like all the other places they'd driven through, with shops along both sides of a wide main road, crowds thronging the pavements and streets and streets full of houses.

‘It's so big,' she said, as they set off down one of the side turnings. The size and assurance of it were making her feel like a country bumpkin.

He was so happy to be home that he didn't notice how discomfited she was. ‘Isn't it,' he said happily. ‘Here we are.'

They'd reached a long terrace of Victorian houses with bay windows hung with net curtains and posh front doors shaded by porches and little front gardens edged by privet hedges and little brick walls.

She was stunned by such affluence. ‘Do you live here?'

‘No,' he said, knocking at one of the doors. ‘This is where my Aunty Mabel lives, where you're going to stay the night.' And before he could tell her anything else, the door was opened by two skinny girls who fell upon him and pulled him into the house, both talking at once and leaving Barbara to follow them.

Steve introduced them, ‘My cousins. This is Joyce.' Waving at the older one. ‘She's a Tartar. You'll have to watch out for her. And this is Hazel. This is Barbara, girls.'

‘We know!' they chorused, staring at her.

‘You coming in?' a woman's voice called. ‘I expect you'd like a cup a' tea, wouldn't you.' Plump, smiling, with Steve's brown eyes. ‘I'm Steve's Aunty Mabel.'

So they had tea and a meal in her warm kitchen, and Barbara sat facing a dresser full of plates and cups patterned green and orange, and listened as they swapped family gossip that she couldn't understand, and felt out of place and uncomfortable with four pairs of identical brown eyes watching her every movement. Then, to her alarm, Steve said he'd better be off.

She couldn't believe her ears. Surely he wasn't going to leave her? ‘Now? I mean, straight away?'

He smiled at her. ‘'Course. It's tradition. Bride and groom have to be kept apart on the wedding eve otherwise it's bad luck. Come and see me out. Bye Aunt Mabel. Bye girls. Thanks for supper.'