Women on the Home Front (163 page)

‘I don’t understand. This is private land. We don’t know anyone round here, do we? What’s all this in aid of? Someone please enlighten me.’ Lily’s heart was thumping with excitement now. The mystery tour was turning into an adventure right enough.

Then she saw the white stone of the castle turrets. She’d seen it once on a postcard. It was Cardwell Towers. What on earth were they doing here?

There were blackout curtains still at the windows, and smoke coming from a chimney. Her hands were shaking. There were cars parked under some trees and one of them was Diana Unsworth’s blue sports car.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed! Trust her to be up to something. Come on, spill the beans before I burst my elastic,’ Lily smiled, pointing at the assembly of friends.

Esme turned from the front seat and smiled. ‘I take my hat off to you in your choice of friends, Lily. They’ve
come up trumps and no mistake. Just wait and see what they’ve sorted out for you.’

The children spilled out of the car, crumpled, confused, blinking into the sunshine. Queenie Quigley’s black van was following slowly behind. Out poured Ana, Su, Maria and Rosa from the back, all dolled up in their wedding attire. Avril and Bill from the travel agency were waiting smiling, holding a basket of bread buns.

‘I don’t believe this!’ Lily smiled shyly. ‘What’s going on?’

‘The wedding may be off but the party’s still on. We’ve just jiggled things around, made a few phone calls, and Bob’s your uncle: a picnic in a private park, no prying eyes, no confetti, no awkward customers, just friends together. It’s too lovely a day to sit indoors and mope.’ Diana rushed forward to give Lily a hug. ‘I hope you don’t mind us taking over.’

‘Mind? It’s the kindest, nicest thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t know what to say.’

‘Then get your gloves off and help us unpack the picnic. We’ve got the run of the place until dusk. There’s a lake down there. I thought we could take the rugs and chairs down under the shade of the willows and set up our picnic. I expect everyone is starving. I know I am.’ Diana was already lifting boxes from the trunk of her car.

‘Did you know about this, Mother, and you, Levi? How did they manage this at such short notice?’

‘Co-operation, delegation and lists, the secret of any good enterprise,’ laughed Queenie, staggering with a
basket of covered tins. ‘Diana’s not a hospital sister for nothing. As soon as she heard the news, she was on the blower, giving us orders right left and centre. Quite the tornado in full flight. We’re just carrying out orders.’

Levi was making himself useful carrying chairs down from a summerhouse with Bill Crumblehume, and a gardener who was looking askance at this motley party dressed up to the nines, making divots in his lawn.

The children raced ahead, excited, like figures in some Victorian portrait-Rosa wearing her Babes in the Wood lace dress with the sash, Neville in his knickerbockers. What they would look like at the end of the day was anyone’s guess.

Lily was speechless and shaking with excitement. This was ten times better than any stuffy wedding breakfast in the church hall. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful but it was worth all the drama just to be standing there, dressed like a toff in the midst of a set worthy of
Gone With the Wind
, amongst the people dearest to her in all the world. How on earth they fixed all this in a few hours, she would never know, but it was wonderful.

Levi made to go but she stopped him. ‘Have a picnic with us,’ she smiled, but he shook his head.

‘I’ve things to do, Sis, while Neville’s here, out of earshot. Ivy’s been ringing round. I’d better sort things out between us.’ He hugged her and promised to pick them all up later.

Poor man would get an earful from Ivy when she found out what she’d missed. The Olive Oils were giving their bride a blow-out to remember. If only her brother
would stand up to his bossy wife and tell her straight that if she’d played fair with Lily’s friends she would have been invited too.

Well, what you sow you reap: wheat and weeds together sometimes. Now there was all this joy just because she picked up two strays and lost a pram. What a tale to tell her grandchildren one day-if she ever got round to having any children of her own, that was. There was a full contingent: Eva, Stefania, Polly Isherwood and even Enid Greenalgh. Lily was glad they’d brought Enid along for she didn’t get out much and would be company for Esme: ten of them, and children carting picnic baskets like sherpas in their high heels and finery. What a sight.

The shadows of branches flickering on the lawn was a scene from an old Master painting. The noise was of children racing, wood pigeons cooing from the rooftops. Was this really happening? She must find out more.

‘Why here?’

‘Let’s say you were bringing the hat back to its rightful owner. Cardwell Towers belongs to the Marsdens. Hilly’s a friend of Mummy. She’s District Commissioner. We sometimes take guides camping out here.

‘As soon as I heard the news, we had an impromptu meeting at HQ, by the way. Everyone wanted to do their bit. I got this vision and I just knew Hilly would come up trumps: Guider to Guider, Be Prepared sort of thing, you know how the rule goes. It’s her Ascot hat you’re wearing and it’s very becoming on you.

‘We’re just lucky that there were no events today in the park and they’ve gone to some sailing regatta at the
Reservoir. Hilaret and Monty are keen yachtsmen. She was delighted to loan us the grounds. I expect we’ll meet them later on. Oh, and she said to tell you she once did a runner before the war, bolted from some dreadful army type, lucky escape and all that. Only happy to oblige with the hat and the venue.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Lily replied.

‘That’s Guiders for you: always ready to fill the breach, so just sit down and eat up. We’re not going until it’s all finished. You’ve paid for most of it, after all!’

People kept coming up and patting her on the shoulder, touching her hand and giving their condolences as if she’d suffered a bereavement but it didn’t feel like that at all. How could she explain that a heavy lead cloak had disappeared from her shoulders or that there were coiled springs in her peep-toes? Even her head was fizzing like pop for the first time in months.

Chairs were brought out and a table laid in the shade with a fine linen cloth. A tray full of glasses sparkled on a wooden trolley with soda siphons and mysterious bottles coloured like jewels: emerald, ruby and rich topaz, and a jug of homemade elderflower lemonade. A picnic basket was groaning with fresh buttered rolls and slices of cooked meats under a net cloche-ham, pork, beef. A bowl of lettuce and tomato, cucumber and celery bulged by a huge raised pie with a golden crust. A pair of silver salad servers sparkled in the sunlight.

‘This is not the ham salad we ordered,’ Lily cried. ‘This is a feast.’

‘Allotment Billy gave us the tomatoes and the rest. We traded in some of the ham for the cooked meats, the
piccalilli is last year’s from my pantry and Maria has made you a special salad dressing,’ Diana announced.

‘It is olive oil vinaigrette, Mamma’s recipe with summer herbs. You will like.’

She looked young again, with black curls, freshly cut by her lover, framing her face. Her dress was a silky mourning lilac with white polka dots and on her head she wore a peekaboo sun hat with a scarf wrapped round it.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Lily croaked.

‘Just eat up and we’ll be happy,’ laughed Esme, who had a napkin tucked under her chin like a bib. ‘Try and not get grease on your outfit. SOS, everybody.’

‘Yes, Mother. Stretch or Starve, folks,’ Lily said, watching everyone tucking in.

There was silence in the group, just the chink of glasses and forks on someone’s best china plates, the rustle of the breeze in the willows and the sound of ducks hovering for titbits by the lake edge. It was perfect. So much trouble taken to make this impromptu wonderful picnic happen.

From out of Queenie’s van came an ice tub of Santini’s best vanilla, a bowl of freshly picked bilberries and the strawberries and raspberries she had picked with Ana. So that was what the visit was for! There were also shortbread biscuits shaped like hearts.

‘The baker gave me those for you. He said to tell you he was sorry and that if he didn’t have a missus he’d marry you himself. You’re a good customer and he hopes things will buck up,’ Queenie said with lips stained purple with fruit.

‘So everyone knows then?’ Lily asked, fearing the worst.

‘Only the caterers when we took the cake decorations back and swapped them for these cream sponges. We’ve filled them with strawberries. Try some,’ ordered Diana, who was looking cool in the heat, and despite her organising, wearing a linen oatmeal dress with a printed silk scarf draped around her shoulders.

‘I’m stuffed to the gills,’ Lily smiled, eyeing the cheese with relish. ‘But I’ll try some of the Lancashire. Where did that come from?’

‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies. Let’s just say a little bird owed me a favour,’ piped Enid with a giggle. ‘This is the grandest do I’ve ever been honoured to attend. I was not going to come empty-handed.’

Soon there was the drowsy murmur of gurgling bellies, belts being loosened and stockings rolled down or taken off, bodies slumped in chairs as the sun rose high. No one could eat another morsel.

They lay content on rugs, in the shade, watching Neville and Rosa making daisy chains and Dina and Joy struggling to keep up. There was space for everyone to stretch out and snooze, but Lily was suddenly awake watching a dragonfly on the lakeside, its iridescent wings shimmering like mother-of-pearl. The setting was so beautiful, so peaceful and so unreal, and soon the sun would slide down behind the copse and her big day would be over.

‘I want to make a toast,’ she declared, stirring them all from their reveries.

‘I want to thank you all, Mother, family, friends, for
your kindness and the honour you’ve done me in saving the day. There are no words to describe how I’m feeling now. I think you could go a lifetime and never have a day like this one, or friends like you lot. I’m that choked up. Thank you, one and all, and to the Olive Oils for saving my day!’

They raised their glasses and sipped the warm white wine.

‘Fill them up again,’ said Diana. ‘Here’s to our dear friend, Lee, the Lily as was. May she find true happiness one day soon.’

‘To Lee Winstanley!’

‘Bottoms up!’

‘To absent friends.’

‘And here’s to the one who got away. May his piles be many. Bottoms up!’

‘One last toast.’ Lily stood up. ‘To the friendships of our Olive Oil Club, long may they continue. Our name started out as someone’s snide remark but now I’m rather proud to be an Olive Oil…the first but not the last, I hope, of the Olive Oil brides…Pouring oil on troubled waters is what we’ve been doing these past months. Something magical has happened today and each one of you has played your part.’ She lifted up the salad dressing jar, watching the oil glinting in the sun.

Ana stood up then. ‘In my country we have saying for good friends. We have eaten bread and salt together, joy and sorrow. Today we, true friends, have tasted both.
Yámas
’

‘And thank you, Ana, for first setting us the task of
searching for liquid gold. We may not be the United Nations but every time we sit down and talk, share a meal, talk about home, we learn something new. Together you and Susan-all of you-have changed my life and broadened my horizons. Cheers! There ought to be more clubs like ours.’

‘Hear, hear!’ They clinked glasses in unison.

‘Who wants a cup of tea?’ shouted Esme, reaching for the Thermos flasks in the last basket. Everyone groaned but no one refused.

Rosa was cartwheeling in a line and the others tried to follow, collapsing in a heap. It was time to stroll around the grounds inspecting the roses and the long border, admiring the view and pretending for just another hour that they were queens of all they surveyed.

Soon Dina wanted a piggyback and their linen skirts and finery were crumpled. Time to collect the plates and pack the baskets, shoo off the wasps and fold up the napkins. The gardener hovered, eager to see them off his lawn and into their cars.

Lily put the picture hat in its box with a sigh.

‘Let me take another photograph,’ yelled Diana, but Lily shook her head.

There was no need to record this day. It would be etched into her mind to that last dying breath; the day she discovered she was loved, valued and respected.

You’re a millionaire in friendships, she thought, but it doesn’t half take it out of you. Now she was bushwhacked, drunk on emotion. She’d take no rocking to sleep tonight. Tomorrow it was off to France, all on her own.