Christmas Wishes (30 page)

One mystery solved, Joy told herself with satisfaction as she finished washing and dressing and left the bathroom. It just goes to show that if one uses one’s brain the inexplicable becomes plain, and what was frightening turns out to be commonplace. All right; he told a lie in order to get my attention, and once he’d done that he thought I might become an extra patient for his practice; that’s assuming he really is a doctor, of course.

She descended the stairs, concentrating so busily on Dr Slocombe that she forgot to count the steps and had to grab at the newel post to stop herself from falling when she reached the hall. She went into the kitchen, realising at once that the curtains were still drawn across and the room was empty, though she would have been hard put to it to explain how she knew. Perhaps it was a stuffiness in the atmosphere and the fact that had someone been in the room they would have greeted her, but at any rate she knew she was alone and rubbed her hands gleefully. She had stolen a march on both her father and Gillian, and now she would put the kettle on, lay the table and get out the hay-box in which Alex made the porridge. His daughters had told him how the Dodmans made porridge, putting the ingredients into a special closed-lid pan which was then placed in a hay-box to simmer until morning, and Alex had seized eagerly on the idea.

Now Joy set about her work, and was just wondering whether it was too soon to serve the porridge into bowls when she heard feet thumping down the stairs and turned to smile at Alex as he entered the kitchen. ‘Morning, Dad,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day? I don’t know quite what Gillian intends to do, but I hope it includes a visit to one of the parks.’

‘Morning, queen,’ Alex said. ‘What a fantastic girl you are to be up so early on the first day of the hols! As for what Gillian intends, I can tell you that. She means to do whatever you want and she’s planned a surprise for later in the week, which I expect she’ll tell you about. Where is she? No, don’t tell me; the lazy little tyke is still in bed, probably dreaming about Keith.’

‘Gillian tells me he’s very good-looking and of course he’s nice, that goes without saying,’ Joy said, as she took the lid off the porridge pot and began to dole the steaming contents into two bowls. She tapped one of them with a finger. ‘These are new; don’t say someone other than myself has started breaking the crockery!’

Alex laughed. ‘No, no, nothing so dramatic. Mrs Clarke saw four bowls in Paddy’s market, with lids, which means we can dish out the porridge, or soup or stew for that matter, and then stand the bowls on the back of the stove to keep warm. Good idea, don’t you think? As for Keith, he’s a grand chap. You’ll like him, I know.’

Joy nodded, and was about to suggest that she might fill Gillian’s porridge bowl and put it on to the back of the stove when she cocked her head. Someone was coming quietly down the stairs and seconds later her twin came into the room, yawning widely. ‘Morning, all,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day, though? Just perfect for a trip to Prince’s Park.’ Joy heard a scrape as her sister pulled a chair out and then a thump as she sat upon it. ‘Who’s the early bird then? I bet our Joy was too excited to have a lie-in on the first day of the holiday.’

Having dished up all the porridge, Joy sat in her own seat and accepted the mug of tea her father slid across the table towards her. She found the spoon and her twin pushed the sugar across to her; Joy scarcely fumbled at all as she began to spoon a small quantity on to her porridge. ‘I’d love to go to one of the parks,’ she said, picking up her mug and taking a mouthful of tea. ‘Oh, Gillian, it’s grand to be home so it is, but I wish I hadn’t missed your Keith.’

Gillian gave a little crow of glee and her chair creaked as she bounced on it. ‘But you haven’t missed Keith,’ she announced triumphantly. ‘That’s the big surprise which I’ve planned for you next Wednesday. I’ve bought two tickets for a coach trip to Llandudno, which is where Keith is working. He’s waiting on at the Imperial Hotel and his day off is Wednesday. He’s going to arrange for us to have a meal in their dining room, which is tremendously posh. Isn’t that good of him? So you see you are going to meet my feller, if I can call him that.’

‘That’s lovely; two, no, three new experiences,’ Joy said. She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘One, I’ve never been to Llandudno, two, I’ve never visited a grand hotel like the Imperial and three, I’ve never met your Keith, though we’ve had one or two near misses.’

‘Yes, I know, but his family owns a holiday cottage in the Welsh mountains and they go off there as soon as school breaks up. In the long vac – that’s what they call the summer holidays at Cambridge – Keith usually gets a job, often down on the coast, which is why you two have missed one another. You are pleased about Llandudno, aren’t you?’ Gillian said rather anxiously, as the two girls began to clear the table. ‘Are you worried by the fact that you’ll be eating in a crowded dining room, though? Because if so, you needn’t be; Keith has arranged for a really good sandwich lunch to be served to us. And Dad’s given me money to buy fish and chips later on, which we can eat out of newspaper, sitting on the pier and chucking bits to the seagulls.’ Balancing a large pile of dirty crocks in one hand, she squeezed her twin’s fingers with the other. ‘We’ll have a marvellous day, I promise you.’

‘You really like Keith, don’t you?’ Joy was saying as a tram drew up alongside the queue in which they waited. ‘Is this one ours? Where are we going, anyway? If we get on, will someone give me a seat? Only I can never find the strap hangers until one hits me in the face.’

‘Yes, this one will take us to Smithdown; we can walk from there to the park,’ Gillian assured her. ‘And I like Keith very much indeed. Oh, Joy, it’s so great to have you home; you can’t think how I’ve missed you! I know you told Dad you were going to get a job, but I don’t see why you need to do so straight away.’

‘I must start searching for one soon,’ Joy said as they settled themselves on the hard slatted seats. ‘Anyway, you’ll be studying tremendously hard and will have no time for me. I’m not grumbling, but the sooner I find a good job and can earn a fair wage, the better. So don’t try to put me off.’

Gillian sighed and raised her voice above the clatter and rumble of the tram. ‘All right, all right, I suppose I’ve got to accept that you want to be independent,’ she said. ‘I know Dad said that he’d be happy for you to stay at home and become his housekeeper, but that’s a one-way ticket, isn’t it? He’d be happy, but you’d be bored to tears. So I suppose this holiday will be the last time we shall be truly together and able to please ourselves. Once you’re working and I’m back at school, life will be pretty hectic, though I sincerely hope we’ll have some sort of social life.’

Joy chuckled. ‘I can’t imagine you kicking your social life into touch,’ she observed. ‘I’m sure we’ll manage to amuse ourselves one way or another. And remember, dear sister, all little birds have to leave the nest, and we’re no exception. Besides, for the last three years, apart from school holidays of course, I’ve been in London and you’ve been in Liverpool, yet we’ve still managed to keep in touch.’

‘Yes, that’s true; you wrote endless letters, pages long, and I answered with short notes,’ Gillian said. ‘When you’re studying all day it’s downright boring to come home and find you are expected to write letters. Still, all that’s over now because we’ll both be living at home.’

Joy might not have been able to read her sister’s face but she could certainly read her voice, and now she heard the dissatisfaction in it. For a moment she felt hurt, then chided herself. It was natural that Gillian, who had lived her own life throughout term time for the past three years, should feel a little resentful at the thought of sharing everything with her twin once again. It was not just that she would be sharing a bedroom – and Joy could remember very clearly how Gillian had resented such sharing before the accident – but now there was Joy’s blindness to take into account. I’ll try my very best to be independent, she promised herself. And I’ve other friends who will help to spread the burden, but I’m afraid it will be a long time before I can dispense with Gillian’s help altogether.

But Gillian was still speaking. ‘I admit I shall be studying harder than I’ve ever done in my life before, because I mean to get into Girton or Newnham if it’s the last thing I do, and of course you’ll be slogging away in some office, nine to half past five …’

She stopped speaking to guide her sister out of the tram and across the busy main road and Joy sniffed ecstatically as they entered the park. ‘Lovely to smell grass,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, there are times when I still miss the country and the Dodmans dreadfully, don’t you?’

‘I do in a way, but whenever we have a free day and don’t need to study Keith and I catch a bus into the country and go for a long walk, or we get the ferry across to Woodside or New Brighton. We’re both great walkers and I’m hoping you’ll take to it as well.’

‘I haven’t done a lot of walking in London, though I used to enjoy it when we lived in Devon,’ Joy acknowledged. ‘Keith’s a medical student, isn’t he? I remember you writing that he had deferred his National Service, just as Edward has done, in order to take his degree. But look, Gillian, I don’t want to play gooseberry when Keith gets back from Llandudno. Right now, though, in this lovely park, I feel I could walk miles and miles, but that’s only because I know you won’t let me bump into trees or trip over stones.’ She tugged on her twin’s arm, pulling her to a halt. ‘What’s that I can smell? Are we near a rose bed?’

‘That’s right; there’s a bed of beautiful velvety red roses and a seat … here, I’ll take you to it and you can sit down and bury your nose in a rose.’ Gillian giggled, sitting Joy down and joining her on the bench. ‘I’m a poet and I didn’t know it,’ she said gaily. ‘No, don’t reach for the roses, because of the thorns. There’s one quite near which you can sniff to your heart’s content whilst I hold the stem.’

‘There’s a garden specially made for the blind near Blinkers,’ Joy said dreamily. ‘I expect there’s one in Liverpool too. Oh, and Gillian, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you have ever visited the ice rink. Silver Blades, I think it’s called. You never said anything when I told you about the Blinkers Christmas treat, so I didn’t like to suggest that you and I might have a go together.’

‘Keith and I went once after you’d said what fun it was and I can well understand your enjoyment, but you’ve got to remember, old love, that the sort of private session which Blinkers arranged just wouldn’t be possible for ordinary folk like us. The rink was tremendously crowded and I was put off the whole idea when I was knocked over by a group of boys within ten minutes of taking to the ice. They were very apologetic, but I grazed my knees and the palms of my hands and didn’t fancy having another try, so Keith took me home. After he had cleaned my wounds and applied TCP, we more or less decided that skating was not our thing.’

‘Didn’t Keith like it either?’ Joy asked. ‘You said in your letters that one reason you and he got on so well was because you both excelled at sports. Doesn’t ice skating count as a sport?’

‘I suppose it must, but Keith really wasn’t keen. However, if he would come with us, we might try to take you on the ice at a beginners’ session, but personally I think it would be jolly dangerous.’

Joy inhaled the glorious scent of the rose which her sister was holding under her nose, then got to her feet. ‘All right, I’ll abandon that idea, because in my heart I always knew it would be impossible,’ she said regretfully. ‘And whilst Keith is in Llandudno, I’d love to go on country walks with you. But when he comes home you can jolly well go off without me, because two’s company and three ain’t. Does Irene have a regular boyfriend?’

Gillian chuckled. ‘Irene. Well, yes and no,’ she said. ‘Dad may not know it but she’s still crazy about him. Oh, she tries not to show it, but she’s never got over her schoolgirl crush, if you can call it that. Dad hasn’t got a clue, of course; poor old Irene tells him there’s a good film on at the Odeon or a special dance at the Grafton and he tells her to go along and enjoy herself. Then Irene says she doesn’t like going to the cinema alone in case folk think she’s hanging out for a feller – same at the Grafton, of course – and Dad fixes her up with one of Blue Watch, or with a girl like Vera Hutchins, who doesn’t have a boyfriend either.’

‘Poor Irene. But surely she must realise Dad’s much too old for her?’ Joy said, tucking her hand into her sister’s arm as they abandoned the bench and began to walk once more. ‘And most of Blue Watch are old as well, apart from Chalky White and Jerome. What does she do? Thank Dad politely and go off to the cinema or the ballroom with whoever he has suggested, making the best of a bad job?’

‘That’s right. But she keeps trying, hoping that one day Dad will realise that she’s the woman for him.’ Gillian laughed. ‘Some hope! But you never know; when you and I leave home, Dad’ll hate it. He’s always taken care of people and perhaps he would regard marriage with Irene as just that.’

‘I doubt it,’ Joy said after some thought. ‘I’m very fond of Irene, but …’ She stopped speaking; there was gravel underfoot now instead of grass and when she drew in a breath she could smell coffee and reflected that she just fancied a drink and one of the sultana scones for which the park café was famous.

She said as much to Gillian, who gave her arm a squeeze. ‘How do you know we’re heading for the café?’ she asked. ‘After so long away I thought you would have forgotten.’

‘I smelt coffee,’ Joy explained. ‘And since it’s such a nice day they’ll surely have some tables outside; is one free?’

Gillian assured her that they could sit outside and settled her sister at one of the green-painted tables, then went into the café, emerging presently to place a tray on the table before Joy. She sat down, told Joy that her coffee was already sweetened and her scone buttered, then returned to an earlier subject. ‘Joy, you know you said you wouldn’t want to make a third with Keith and me on our country walks? Well, by the time he comes back from Llandudno, I hope you’ll have a boyfriend of your own, or if not a boyfriend, a fellow whose company you enjoy. That’s why I brought you to the park, because this afternoon there’ll be a couple of cricket matches, and where there are cricket matches there are boys.’