The Daisy Club (43 page)

Freddie could not wait for six o'clock to arrive. The film was terrible, but possibly it seemed all the more so because she was so looking forward to going to The Cock and Pheasant?

She had packed her precious pieces of loo paper in her handbag, and so was able to arrive early at the pub, and ‘pop to the aunt', where she put on some lipstick, and combed her hair.

She stared at herself. She had grown so thin that Sister kept joking that if Freddie stood sideways they would never be able to find her.

She pinched her cheeks, and put her long plait into a twist at the back. Despite the shortage of shampoo, and having to melt down soap – if you could get it – she could not bring herself to cut off her hair, particularly since Jessica and Blossom had gone. Aunt Jessie had always been so proud of Freddie's long hair, ever since she was small. She had promised Jessica never to cut it, and she never would.

She climbed slowly up the stairs, hoping that no one would come rushing up to her and ask her what to do about their boils or their VD, or their asthma, or anything else that happened to be wrong with them, because one glance at her uniform, and a queue could form. Happily, Benjamin Bastable was waiting for her in the bar with a particularly eager expression.

‘Beer?'

‘Lovely, thank you. Can I?'

She opened her purse to help out with the round.

‘No, you can't,' Ben said, looking shocked. ‘You're my date, not my war chest!'

Freddie smiled, and they started talking, only to be interrupted a few minutes later by the rest of what Ben called ‘our gang'.

‘Of course you know he lost his hand helping us out, so that's why we have to let him drive us?'

Freddie smiled, knowing better, but also knowing that driving with one hand could not be easy. But then, flying a plane with no legs wasn't, either, and they'd all been told about a certain pilot who did that.

‘There's dancing in the upstairs room. Want to come and jitterbug?'

‘Don't know how to,' she had to admit.

‘It's easy. I'll show you, as long as you don't mind catching my left hand. I can spin you, and you can follow my feet, just do the same as I do.'

Freddie looked down at her nurse's uniform. Would it matter?

‘I was going to hitch a lift, and then go on to the hospital, that's why I'm like this,' she confessed, feeling suddenly awkward, as they were passed by girls who were really got up to the nines, if not the tens.

‘You look cute,' Ben told her. ‘No one to hold a candle to you. Come on.' He held out his left hand and pulled her after him. ‘You don't know what fun is until you've jitterbugged.'

Branscombe nodded at Alec. He had given him a top-to-toe inspection, and fully approved of what he could see. It had not been easy to kit Alec out from the few clothes that they had, but kit him out they had. The only hitch had been finding shoes. Alec had, quite rightly, refused to wear a pair of dancing pumps that Miss Freddie had found in the attic, instead they had all agreed that the riding boots were the only solution.

Alec cycled to the station, one thing, and one thing alone, on his mind. He had to find out what had happened. Very well, the house had taken a direct hit, but he had to see for himself. He could not possibly bring the others, as it would leave the farm too short-handed, but Miss Maude and Mr Branscombe understood, he had to go back to London to see everything for himself.

The train, when it arrived, was so crowded that it was not just a question of standing, it was a question of fitting in at all. Mr Budgeon gave Alec's backside one last great shove, and thanks to him, and his skill at shutting the door, Alec found himself aboard, and on his way back to London.

He also found himself face to face, only inches away, from a dozen unfamiliar faces, who all stared at him.

‘We were just discussing the movies we have seen,' a Canadian soldier said. They were standing so close to each other, that, as the soldier joked, a little later, ‘Any closer and we'd have to marry.'

At that particular moment, though, the soldier smiled encouragingly, but to no avail. Alec had to admit that he had never seen a film, nor even been to the cinema.

‘I live in the country,' he said, by way of explanation, and as he spoke he could see that his fellow passengers were staring at him, so closely that it was not difficult to see they were thinking he was like someone from Mars, if he had never seen a film.

‘What's that like, living in the country, then?'

‘You don't sound like a countryman—'

‘No, I'm a cockney, but I live in the country now.'

‘Well, tell us about it, why don't you?' The Canadian nodded encouragingly, once more, as the train slowly made its way towards the capital.

So Alec told his fellow passengers what it was like to be in the country, and how hard it could be, but also how rewarding. He told them about getting up at first light, and going to bed as it faded, about the kind of animals you saw, and the birds. How you could, if you were lucky, see a kingfisher, which was of such a startling colour that it made you wonder how it could survive. He told them about the army taking over Twistleton, and how all the birds and the wildlife had somehow seemed to have taken refuge at the Hall, away from the armoured cars and the guns and the mortars. He told them how Miss Maude went to nurse at the hospital, because she had nursed during the Great War, and how Mr Branscombe made soups for them all out of everything and anything, and how they set about the hedgerows in autumn, plucking what they could, from hazelnuts to blackberries; and how he had learned to shoot rabbits, and skin them, too, and how he and his brothers milked the cows, and knew every one of them by name. He told them so much that by the time the train, very, very slowly, arrived in the middle of the night at the station, and they all had to take refuge in the Underground because the sirens were screaming, the Canadian soldier said in parting, ‘Thank you, young man. Now I know exactly what we are all fighting for. And good luck!'

There was no point in Alec trying to make his way across London immediately. Instead he stayed down in the Underground, trying to enjoy the people, trying not to realise that he was no longer used to crowds, trying not to see what some of them were doing, trying to endure the smell, which was a hundred times more intrusive than the smell from a cow's stall or pigsty.

Once the all-clear sounded, he walked to Miss Daisy's basement flat, to which Branscombe had given him a key. He found the house eventually, by dint of asking anyone and everyone, and was at last able to turn the key in the latch, all the while not quite knowing what to expect. He had never been in this part of London before, and although the buildings were bombed, and the streets filled with troops and police, it seemed to him, as he asked for directions, that the whole of a very sophisticated world was being offered up to him. The people were so different from those with whom he had grown up, not just their voices, but their faces. He pushed the basement door open. Inside the flat the blackout was in place all right, and it was as dark as he had expected – which made it all the more startling when he realised that there was someone else inside, someone there ahead of him. He caught his breath as a voice spoke out of the darkness.

‘Sign in!'

Daisy flashed a torch at him, before quickly shutting the door, and putting on a very small low-watt bulb.

‘Miss Daisy!'

Daisy grinned. There was no other word for it.

‘Yup, this is Miss Daisy, Alec, and this is my club, and you ain't going no further, young man, without signing yourself in.'

Daisy opened the visitors' book and pointed one elegant finger at the last name there.

‘Sign there, Alec Lindsay!' She stopped suddenly, staring at the last signature. ‘Laura – Miss Laura – signed in before you. Oh, and she has left me a nice little note, too.'

Darlingest Daisybags,

So sweet of you to say we could all return to the Daisy Club whenever we wanted. I have spent a wonderful night under the table, until the all-clear, and then a blisskins sleep on your ducky little sofa, and now I am off down to Twisters to see the other members of the Club, but meanwhile I send you love and thanks from your now really rather Froggy little friend – safely returned!

Daisy finished reading the note, put Alec into her bed, shared some chocolate with him – he had never had it before, bless him – and then settled herself down on the sofa to try to sleep. That sleep would not come was nothing to do with the comfort, or not, of the sofa, but everything to do with the realisation that David had signed his name in the book when he was last at the flat with her, Daisy.

She went to stand up, and then realised that the flat was so small she wouldn't be able to take more than five strides, and anyway she didn't want to wake Alec. She sat down again. If Laura had come here, Laura must have seen David's signature in the visitors' book. She just must have. Daisy lay back in the chair. She would have to tell her. Most of all she would have to tell her because she had heard from David for the first time in ages, only a few hours earlier. He was still alive, and wanted to see her again. Had to see her again, but fretted that she might not want to see
him
. Daisy did want to see him, but not before she had spoken to Laura.

The following morning Daisy insisted on taking Alec back to his home. It was a devastating sight, but the clearing-up of the street had obviously been going on for some time. She left Alec silently staring at the remains of his parents' house, and went to talk to some of the neighbours, the lucky ones who had escaped a direct hit, and who were now helping to clear the street of the remains of the unlucky ones. All the living told Daisy that they were determined to cling on to their homes, despite the lack of water, the lack of anything, really. They were still defiant, and unable to leave all that they loved, all that they had worked for.

Alec remained standing in front of the rubble that had once been his home, struggling not to show his feelings, his throat working as he realised just what had happened. He was biting on his fist, really biting, when he heard footsteps behind him, and looked round. It was one of his parents' oldest friends.

‘'Ere, Alec Lindsay, isn't it?' Alec shook the hand held out to him. ‘I wouldn't have known you from Fred Astaire, you changed that much, young man.'

He stood back, taking in Alec's grown-up height, his whole demeanour, which gave Alec much-needed time to pull himself together.

‘You've changed into a proper toff, you have! Look at you! Riding boots and all! Come with me, I've got something for you, my lad, something that will please you, too. A proper treat I have in store for you. My, but my missus won't half be glad to see you. She won't half. Come on, put your best foot forward, lad.'

It was Daisy's turn to look round. Alec? Alec? Where was he?

She walked rapidly down the street, calling out, stopping people, asking. They pointed to a house further up, the end-of-terrace house always so prized by those who lived in a row.

‘In there!'

Daisy stopped by the gate, or rather by the half-gate, and then, seeing Alec by the door, she made a pretence of shutting it, despite it not being anything more than a few pieces of wood swinging off a hinge. She did it so smartly that Alec burst out laughing, but when Daisy saw who was standing beside him, she started to cry.

‘You're not to tell Aunt Maude I blubbed. If she finds out she'll kick me out again, truly, she will.'

Daisy said this as the car turned into what had once been the long drive up to the Hall. They had driven back to Twistleton through a rain-storm, two security checks and a hail of bullets – it was the new Nazi pastime to fly low and shoot at civilians.

They had given two VAD ladies a lift, not to mention a very old member of the ARP, a kindly gesture which Daisy had soon regretted.

‘Everything's initials now, isn't it?' he had said, grumbling. His whole personality had been infused with a sort of strange, suppressed boredom. ‘People too lazy to pronounce anything any more.' He then proceeded to pronounce on everything from the conduct of the war to the black marketeers, and always in such a tired voice, as if he had quite given up on everyone else, for the good reason that they were not like him.

But that was before Daisy, all too used to identifying the sound of enemy aircraft, had driven off the road, and shouted at them to get out of the car.

And hadn't she been right? Bullets had indeed rained down from the returning German bombers, but happily, not on them.

After that, the elderly gentleman had not been at quite such pains to appear bored. In fact he had shut up, which was just as well, for if he had not, Daisy thought she might have chucked him out of the car.

Anyway, come hell or high water, and they had enjoyed a little of both, here they were at last, creeping up the drive to the steps of the Hall.

Before Daisy even had time to pull on the handbrake, Freddie and Branscombe and Aunt Maude were out on the top step to greet them, little Ted beside them. In fact everyone and anyone who could was standing behind them. Tom and Dick, on hearing the motor car arriving, ran from the side of the house.

‘Johnny, Johnny, Johnny is back!' they all shouted, and laughed, and then shouted some more – and laughed some more, too.

Later Daisy explained that the Lindsays' neighbours, knowing that Johnny had been scooped up by the Red Cross, had taken him in, while all the time hoping that the rest of the family would contact them.

In spite of all the jubilations going on around him, Johnny was silent, while allowing any number of people to embrace him, allowing them to even kiss him. He himself even kissed little Ted, and patted the dogs, of course, but it wasn't until he was with Branscombe in the kitchen that he finally spoke, holding up a small brown paper package that he had clutched all the way from London.