Only a Mother Knows (36 page)

She could hear her mother humming to the songs being played on the Home Service wireless programme and clearly enjoying the ENSA concert for war workers. Tilly was looking forward to hearing the Empire link-up, which was to be broadcast at two p.m., entitled ‘The Fourth Christmas’, which would send messages home to loved ones from the troops who were serving abroad.

The house was really Christmassy this year, Tilly thought, as the smell of roast goose wafted through the house, making her mouth water and her tummy rumble even though there were still two hours to go before everybody arrived and they sat down to eat. However, even though it would be so wonderful to have everybody together again there would still be one place empty … What would Drew be doing right now? she wondered.

‘It’s lovely to have you home again,’ Olive said, going over to the sideboard and retrieving the silver cutlery, which was brought out only for Christmas and other special occasions and had been bought for her parents on their wedding day. ‘It is just like old times.’

‘I was just thinking the same thing myself,’ said Tilly. ‘Everything looks lovely as usual, Mum. You have done a fantastic job with what little there is to be had these days.’ Tilly was trying desperately to shrug off the pall of melancholy that her home visit had resurrected. It was easier to ignore the longing for her soulmate when she was in camp with the other girls; as there was so much else to do and she was kept busy all of the time.

She had sent Drew and his family a Christmas card, of course, there was no point in being stubborn and childlike about their split. After all, they had shared some very intimate moments in their lives and she knew, she just knew that Drew had felt exactly the same way about her as she did about him – even if his love didn’t last as long, at least the last two years had been spent with the man she would love for the rest of her life.

Janet, her friend back at camp, thought she was raising her hopes too high, given the reputation the American troops had acquired for ‘loving and leaving’ their girls since they came over here last January, but Tilly knew that Drew wasn’t like the rest of them. He was kind and gentle and moral and upstanding … She could go on listing his qualities recalling the night they vowed, in the little village church, to love each other forever, and as Drew placed the ring on her finger she’d felt a special kind of magic that only truly united souls experienced. She gave a long, drawn-out sigh realising the Christmas card she had hoped to receive hadn’t arrived. But it didn’t stop her heart from aching with love for him.

‘I’m going for a little walk before lunch, Mum,’ Tilly said, knowing her mother wouldn’t allow her to help with the preparations; the kitchen being Olive’s domain today and could not be invaded by anybody.

Taking in the once-familiar landmarks that had now been irrevocably changed by enemy bombings Tilly’s heart slumped as she drove her gloved hands deeper into her pockets, her collar pulled up against the freezing early-afternoon mist. She told herself that if she lost her sense of sight she would still know she was home just by the lingering smell of chimney smoke and freshly scrubbed doorsteps.

She had been walking nowhere in particular for a long time, enjoying being home once again and sorting out her thoughts. She didn’t want to ruin anybody’s – especially her mother’s – Christmas by being maudlin. Taking a long stroll would hopefully clear her head. Thoughts of Drew telling her about his father, a tyrant by all accounts, who wanted his son to go into the newspaper empire he had built from scratch, played on her mind. What if his father had forbidden him to come back to England? What if he had joined the Forces and was fighting somewhere right now? That seemed the most obvious answer to Tilly and it hit her so suddenly she stopped right there on the cracked pavement and the audible gasp was loud enough to give a courting couple reason to turn and stare in her direction. Tilly could feel her cheeks burn even in the frosty haze.

What if Drew had been sent overseas? He could be anywhere! He might not even have seen the Christmas card she sent. But she had to be strong and surrender herself to destiny; if she was to see Drew again, as deep in her heart Tilly believed she would, then the stars would lead him to her once more. Drew had a quietly persevering, some would call it an independent soul, and although he’d told her that he would one day have to comply with his father’s demands, he’d also told her he would only do it with her by his side.

However, she had to return home now. Agnes would be off-duty soon, after working until four o’clock, and everybody would be arriving. The least she could do was to be there to help her mother. At the corner of Hatton Garden near the old family department store of Gamages, Tilly headed back home.

‘We don’t want this on, do we?’ Olive asked, going over to the wireless as dedications were being read out from servicemen abroad. She didn’t want Tilly any more upset than she imagined she must be feeling now, with Drew not being here this year, and remembering how good last year had been.

‘Oh, leave it on low, Mum, maybe we can throw the rug back and have a little dance later.’

‘That sounds like a lovely idea,’ Olive said, relieved that Tilly seemed to have got over her bout of melancholy.

The house was alive with chattering voices and happy smiling faces. Nancy was helping Olive by handing out the Christmas punch, made by Archie before he went home for a few hours’ sleep after being on duty the previous night. Barney was flying his Avro Anson from the kitchen to the front room and making the engine noises to go with it, whilst baby Alice was awestruck with wonder.

Everybody listened to the repeat broadcast of the king’s speech being relayed on the evening news and nodded in shared agreement when King George the Sixth reminded them that ‘… recent victories won by the United Nations enabled me this Christmas to speak with confirmed confidence about the future …’

‘That’s good news,’ said Nancy, before being shushed by all those gathered around the wireless, much to her obvious chagrin.

‘… and that the forty tremendous months behind us have taught us to work together for victory …’

‘Hear, hear!’ chorused the listeners.

‘… we must see to it that we keep together after the war to build a worthier future …’

The nine people around the table, even little Alice, stood for the National Anthem and then as the final notes tailed off, everybody including Barney, Nancy and her husband, resplendent in their homemade Robin Hood-style party hats, resumed their seats at the table, which now looked as if it too had been blitzed, with empty plates and glasses, and the huge goose carcass lying redundant on the silver platter. Tilly, offered to do the washing up whilst Agnes went to help.

‘You must be thrilled,’ Tilly said after Agnes had confided to her friend the news of her father.

‘You won’t mention it to anybody, will you? I haven’t told Ted yet,’ Agnes said in a low whisper.

‘Of course I won’t,’ Tilly assured her, turning on the gas-powered geyser for hot water. She hadn’t really wanted to talk, just to dream of Drew as she washed the mountain of crockery in readiness for the evening get-together when Dulcie and David would be here along with the vicar and Mrs Windle, but that would be selfish of her after Agnes had revealed her most important news. Her mother had always taught her to think of others before herself and she did – usually.

‘It is so frustrating when you can’t talk of the thing you most want to discuss,’ Agnes said, grabbing a clean tea towel, making Tilly feel doubly contrite.

‘Don’t you want him to know about your family?’ Tilly asked.

‘Of course I do,’ said Agnes, ‘but I feel that it would change things.’

‘In what way?’ Tilly asked, her brow furrowed as she passed Agnes the plate.

‘I think he might feel as if I’m getting above myself.’

‘By having a family to call your own?’ Tilly’s brows shot up. She knew Ted’s mother wasn’t fond of Alice and she also knew the woman craved respectability, but being a farmer’s daughter was nothing to be ashamed of, surely?

‘I feel such a failure,’ confessed Agnes, drying the dishes and putting them in the cupboard so Tilly couldn’t see her crestfallen features.

‘What do you mean, Agnes, a failure? You have the kindest, most loving heart I have ever come across, you’re not a failure.’

‘Oh, Tilly, bless you.’ Agnes gave a little nod of her head and said a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens for sending her such a friend.

‘Oh, there you are, we were going to send Archie out on horseback to come and find you!’ Olive was obviously a little glassy-eyed after a lunchtime sherry, and laughed as she ushered Dulcie and David into the front room, where Sally was banging out a rendition of ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ on the upright piano.

‘David’s mother came for lunch and we couldn’t shove her out of the door,’ Dulcie declared over the cacophony of Sally’s tuneless voice, feeling right at home again.

‘You should have brought her with you, David,’ Archie called over the singing.

‘What, and ruin a perfectly good party? I don’t think so, do you?’ The men laughed and Archie handed David a glass of something dark and alcoholic that he claimed was a punch. Spluttering on the first sip, David gasped that its strength was almost lethal as he passed Archie a wicker basket full of bottles.

‘Ask no questions, Sergeant,’ David laughed, implying black-market acquisitions, although Archie suspected David had raided his own burgeoning drinks cabinet to cheer the party along. As the sound of seasonal good cheer echoed around the room nobody caught the knock at the front door at first and then a few minutes later Barney, making the sound of an aeroplane in full flight, zoomed into the hallway and opened the front door when he heard an impatient ran-tan.

‘Did somebody say there was a war on?’ asked a deep male voice from the front-room doorway. Everybody turned – and there stood Callum.

‘Hello, everybody, I hope you don’t mind me popping in like this,’ he said, his face bright with happiness. ‘I was in the area and I thought I’d come to see my little niece.’ Catching sight of Alice his face beamed even more brightly. ‘My, how you’ve grown!’ he exclaimed, picking her up and giving her a huge hug.

Sally felt something akin to sheer delight sear through her veins, quickly followed by a rush of shame; she shouldn’t still feel this way now, surely? George was the one she was engaged to. She shouldn’t enjoy Callum’s familiar kiss upon her cheek as much as she did, she reprimanded herself as she felt her face suffuse with heat at his touch.

Everyone at once tried to shake Callum’s hand and pat him on the back through his navy blue greatcoat. But when he said, ‘A very merry Christmas to you’, she felt it was meant for her and her alone. Even though he had been writing to her regularly of late she hadn’t expected him to turn up here without warning. Of course she realised if he had some leave it was obvious he would want to see little Alice, after all she was the daughter of his only sister.

‘When did you dock?’ Sally asked, trying to appear unfazed by his sudden appearance, still remembering that dizzy breath-catching-in-her-throat feeling she had had when Morag had first introduced them. Callum had come to walk his sister home from the Liverpool hospital after they had been on nights, and the minute she had seen her friend’s tall, good-looking brother, with his thick dark hair and his warm smile, Sally had been lost.

Callum was kind, considerate and, well, just everything Sally had ever imagined herself finding attractive in a man. Callum, with his worn Harris tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, his Tattersall shirts, and the warmth in his piercing blue eyes whenever he looked at her, had stolen Sally’s heart completely. And by kissing her as he had done one Boxing Day evening he had shown that he cared about her too, even if he had said afterwards that he hadn’t intended it to happen and that, as a poorly paid assistant teacher with a sister to support, ‘I’m the worst kind of a cad for kissing you when I know I have nothing to offer you.’ Sally remembered him saying it as clearly as if he had just spoken to her now. However she also remembered, as her face flushed hotly, he had paused and looked at her and said huskily, ‘At least not at the moment.’

‘That’s classified, I’m afraid. I can’t tell you where I’m going or where I’ve been,’ Callum laughed in response to her question. ‘I couldn’t get leave and not see Alice. Look, Alice, darling …’ He turned his attention back to the little girl in his arms. ‘I brought you this.’ He handed Alice a rag doll and the child, thrilled, scrambled down and put it in the cradle that Archie had made.

‘Twins!’ she squealed with glee, causing the assembled party to smile.

Callum and Sally’s eyes locked for a second longer than was necessary before Callum said brightly to the assembled guests, ‘I haven’t come empty-handed!’ Taking his kit bag, to the delight of everybody present, he emptied half a dozen oranges onto the table. ‘So am I entitled to join the party now?’

‘You bet!’ cried Barney, who hadn’t seen an orange for at least two years.

‘I’ll take these, thank you,’ Olive said, ‘and we will all have some later.’ She knew that otherwise the oranges would be gone in minutes. However, if she split them evenly then everybody would get some.

‘Oh, you are in for a treat, Alice,’ Barney said in a low voice to the little girl who had never seen an orange in her life and tried to bounce one on the floor.

Callum sighed, taking in the cosy atmosphere. ‘I’m afraid this is only a flying visit, as I only have shore leave for forty-eight hours,’ he admitted, ‘so I’ll need to be back by midnight tomorrow.’

‘Will you make it in time?’ Sally asked, knowing the trains would be full to bursting with servicemen.

‘I’ll catch the first one and then I’ll stand a good chance – but I couldn’t be back in England and not come to see …’

‘Alice!’ Sally quickly cut in, sure that Callum was going to say something he shouldn’t. She stood, and moved towards the kitchen. Callum immediately made to follow her.

‘Of course not – and she’s so pleased with her new doll!’ There was a moment of uneasy silence before Sally said quickly, ‘So did you come straight here from Liverpool?’ Reaching for the lukewarm kettle, she refilled it and put it back on the stove.