Christmas Wishes (6 page)

The twins stared at him. For a moment Alex regretted shouting, then decided that he had done the right thing when the twins hurled themselves into his arms, vowing and declaring that they would be good, that it was excitement which had caused them to argue, that they would not let him down by behaving badly.

‘We’re always kidding each other,’ Gillian said, tears running down her cheeks. ‘We don’t mean a thing by it, do we, Joy? We’ll be angels, so we will, isn’t that so, Joy?’

Alex’s lips twitched, but he managed to suppress the smile that lurked. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said severely. ‘Now, as soon as we finish eating, I think we ought to visit your grandma, just to let her know you’re safely home.’ He waited for objections, knowing that the twins disliked their grandmother and had always tried to get out of visiting her. Today, however, though they exchanged a furtive look, they both murmured politely that to see Grandma would be a rare treat, so it would. Alex smiled grimly. ‘Best bib and tucker,’ he said briskly. ‘And we’ll take her some trifle and a couple of sausage rolls – oh, you’ve eaten them all. Well, she can have a nice big slice of chocolate cake instead; her teeth like soft food.’

Up in their own room, changing into their navy blue Sunday dresses, white cardigans and white strap shoes, Gillian and Joy pulled faces at one another and groaned softly beneath their breath. ‘She’s as batty as a bat and she smells funny,’ Joy whispered. ‘In fact the only good thing about her is that she can’t tell us apart.’

‘Can’t tell red from green either,’ Gillian riposted. ‘When we stayed with her for that weekend whilst Mummy and Daddy went off to a wedding in Scotland, you must have told her a dozen times and I told her a hundred that I was the red ribbon twin and you were the green one.’

Joy stifled a giggle. ‘She kept calling us Bessie and Lil, what were Dad’s cousins, I think. But we mustn’t be too hard on her; she’s our dad’s mam after all!’

As soon as the twins had settled in, Alex called a meeting with his daughters. He had already told them that he intended to run his home life in the same way he ran Blue Watch. They would meet once a week, himself and his girls, and discuss how they were getting on and whether he needed to employ someone to work in the house and do the shopping, or whether the girls could manage.

‘The first week is the most important one,’ he had stressed. ‘I know you helped Mrs Dodman with both shopping and keeping the cottage tidy, and I’m sure you can do simple cooking. You will have to agree between you who does what, but if I find the house being neglected, or milk turning sour because it’s been left in the kitchen and not moved to the slate slab in the pantry, then I’m going to have to think again.’

So now the three of them were assembled in the kitchen, Joy and Gillian looking anxious and their father, Joy was pleased to notice, glancing round at the tidy room with an approving look. She began to say that the only thing they felt they needed was some simple cookery lessons, but Alex shushed her with a reproving frown. ‘I call this meeting to order,’ he said firmly. ‘I will give a résumé of the past week whilst you sit quiet and don’t interrupt. When I’ve finished, I shall ask one of you to explain the whys and wherefores; do you understand me?’

Rather overawed by their father’s businesslike approach, Joy shot an anxious look at her twin. They had done their best because neither of them wanted their father to have to employ a woman to carry out tasks they were sure they could do themselves. They had worked harder than they had ever done in their lives before, but had it paid off?

It was easier now than it would be in the future, she realised, because they had not yet started school, though that would only last until Monday, when they would both take their places at Bold Street, although Gillian would only be there until Christmas. She had passed the scholarship for St Hilda’s with flying colours, and would start there when the spring term commenced. As Joy had expected, she herself had not managed to make the grade, so for the first time in their school lives the twins would be parted.

Now, Alex cleared his throat. ‘I’ll start by telling you what you already know: that you’ve done very well indeed,’ he said, and gave Joy and Gillian his most charming smile. ‘Of course I realise that things won’t be quite so easy for you when you’re back in school but you’ve proved you can cope, and cope well, what’s more. Our meals have been on the table at the right time, you have dealt admirably with the complications of ration books and so on, and though there were one or two occasions when I heard raised voices as I entered the house, by and large you’ve worked well together.’ He pointed at Gillian. ‘You’re the eldest, and I imagine once you start at St Hilda’s in January you will have the most homework. Do you feel you will be able to continue to do your share, or shall we consider employing someone to clean and cook or do our marketing?’

‘Oh, no,’ both girls said in chorus, Joy clapping her hand over her mouth when she realised she had not been addressed. Gillian, however, enlarged on their reply.

‘I’m sure we can cope, Daddy. Fanny told Joy that they give you cookery lessons at Bold Street school and we did think we might ask Mrs Lubbock, next door, if we could watch the next time she’s cooking. I know you’ve never complained, Daddy, but you’ve had boiled eggs like bullets, spuds raw in the middle and sprouts with enough insects in them to feed an army. If Mrs Lubbock wouldn’t mind giving us a few tips …’

Alex smothered a grin and said he was sure Mrs Lubbock, a fat, easy-going pensioner who had offered to give a helping hand, would oblige. Joy waved her hand energetically, as she did in class. ‘Daddy … why can’t we ask Mrs Clarke? Mrs Lubbock’s ever so nice, but …’

‘I know,’ Alex said, smiling. ‘She’s not the best cook in the world. But her scones are all right, aren’t they? And she knows how to fry an egg and boil a spud.’

‘I’d rather watch Mrs Clarke cooking, if she were to offer. But she does so much for everyone that she probably wouldn’t have the time. As for the cleaning and that, Gillian and me manage all right, though I do most of it, wouldn’t you say, Gillian?’

Gillian gave a guilty smile. ‘I like to read a book while I’m ironing or doing the washing,’ she admitted. ‘But Joy will manage really well. She’s much more practical than I am.’

‘How true!’ Joy said fervently. ‘But actually, I rather enjoy cleaning and I’d like to learn to cook. As Gillian says, I’m not brainy, but I am practical.’

‘That’s so, and after all it’s not a big house,’ Gillian said firmly. ‘We hardly ever go into the parlour and you do your own bedroom, Daddy, which only leaves us the kitchen, the bathroom and our room.’ She turned to her sister. ‘We can manage easy-peasy, can’t we, Joy?’

‘Course. And when we’re back in school we shan’t be here to make a mess,’ Joy observed. She had decided frankness was their best course. ‘I’d hate to have some old woman tellin’ me how to dust, or scrub floors, or clean the perishing bath.’

Alex laughed. ‘Right you are. But remember, if you begin to let things slide …’

‘We shan’t, honest to God we shan’t,’ Gillian said quickly. ‘But if we do you can take away our pocket money and get paid help. All right?’

Her father held out a large hand, first to Gillian and then to Joy. ‘Shake on it,’ he said. ‘We’re a good team; let’s hope we can keep it up!’

It was a freezing cold day in December and the twins were helping their teacher to clear up, for the school holidays were almost upon them and the following day they would be engaged in a school production of the nativity play. However, this was not the only reason they had chosen to stay behind. They were avoiding Pat Seddon, a large and aggressive girl who had come top of the class until the advent of the Lawrence twins … and bitterly resented the ease with which Gillian in particular dealt with lessons.

Ever since they had started at the school, Pat had made no secret of her dislike of the twins. Knowing that Gillian would be off to St Hilda’s at the start of the spring term, she had done her best to make their lives a misery, though whilst in class she contented herself with muttering insults too low for a teacher to hear. She, and sometimes a little gang of her cronies, would follow them home jeering and taunting, and if they caught them up it would be to call names, to give one of them a spiteful shove or a clack, or even to try to push them into the road.

‘Gillian, ’er gracious ladyship,’ Pat would shout in a would-be posh accent. ‘She thinks she’s too good for the likes of us so she’s goin’ to St Hilda’s, but they’ll soon cut her down to size. And miserable Joy’s as thick as two short planks, so she is! Oh aye, they gives theirselves airs and graces, but they ain’t nothin’ special, nothin’ special at all.’

The twins did their best to ignore both Pat and her pals, but by and large it was easier to stay late at school – ‘gettin’ in wi’ the teachers’, Pat would call it – and walk home through the gathering dusk, provided they were back in time to get a meal together and start on their homework. Besides, the shops were bright with Christmas to come, and though the wartime shortages showed no hint of easing the windows at least looked colourful and jolly, and so the twins rather enjoyed the late walk home from school.

‘What’ll you do when I’m at St Hilda’s, though? You’ll be on your own then,’ Gillian said as the two of them left the school premises, wrapped their scarves round their mouths, and set off for home. ‘Suppose I stop off the tram at your school and we walk the rest of the way together?’

Joy snorted. ‘I’m not scared of bleedin’ Pat Seddon,’ she said scornfully. ‘I’ll get a gang of me own and we’ll have a grand battle. Anyway, she’s leaving school at the end of the spring term because she’ll be fourteen by then. I’ll be right as rain, just you see!’

Chapter Three

Joy awoke on Christmas morning with that wonderful excited feeling which only Christmas can bring. She sat up cautiously and knew without even looking that Gillian, too, was awake and sitting up. But nevertheless she spoke in an excited whisper.

‘Gillian? What time is it? Can we get up yet?’

‘Shouldn’t think so, it’s very early,’ Gillian hissed back. ‘Which bed?’

‘Yours,’ Joy said. ‘There are stockings, though Daddy said we were too old. Shall we …?’ As she spoke she seized her bulging stocking – actually one of Alex’s fireman’s socks – and leapt into her twin’s bed, snuggling down and hugging the exciting object to her nightgowned breast.

Cuddled close, both girls examined their trophies, not needing their eyes to tell them what the stockings contained. ‘Paperback book, a bag of humbugs, a tin whistle – don’t you dare blow it, Joy, or you’ll wake the whole perishin’ street – and an orange,’ Gillian said. ‘Yours will be the same … oh, and there’s something crumbly done up in a paper bag, in the heel … shortbread! I bet that’s old Ma Clarke’s contribution.’

‘Don’t call names, she’s ever so nice,’ Joy muttered sleepily through a mouthful of humbug. ‘I wonder what the books are. But wasn’t it sly of Daddy to say we were too old for stockings and then to give us one each anyway? I reckon he’s the best daddy in the whole world.’

‘He’s grand,’ Gillian agreed. ‘Have you ever wondered, Joy, how he came to have such a horrible mother? If Daddy’s the best then Grandma’s the worst; and she’ll come to dinner and tea like always and grumble about every single thing. Gravy’s too thin, stuffings’s too rich, chicken upsets her digestion …’

Both girls dwelled beatifically, for a few moments, on thoughts of the dinner to come. The previous day, while Gillian was cleaning the kitchen and Joy the bathroom before heading out to the market on Great Homer Street to search for Christmas Eve bargains, someone had knocked on the front door. Gillian had flown to answer it and returned with a cardboard box, well wrapped in string and sticky tape. ‘It’s a Christmas present from the Dodmans,’ she had said breathlessly, dumping the parcel on the kitchen table. ‘It’s addressed to the Lawrence family, so I suppose we can open it, can’t we?’

‘I think we ought to,’ Joy had said. ‘Daddy won’t mind if we jump the gun, because it’s bound to be something to eat.’

It was. When the wrappings were laid aside, a chicken had been revealed, trussed and ready for the table. Both girls had given squeals of delight before carrying the precious bird into the cool pantry and placing it reverently in the meat safe. ‘What a blessing it’s arrived before we go bargain-hunting, though,’ Gillian had said devoutly. ‘Aren’t the Dodmans the kindest people you could meet? We must write them a really long, newsy letter to thank them, and tell them all about our Christmas.’ This being agreed upon, the twins had resumed their work.

Now, their attention returned to the failings of their grandmother. ‘When I was little,’ Joy said musingly, ‘I used to wonder …’

‘… if Daddy were a changeling,’ Gillian finished, and both girls broke down in giggles. ‘Only changelings are usually small and trim with pointy ears and a faraway look in their eyes,’ she added. ‘Oh well; at least Auntie Serena and Uncle Perce are okay … and Daddy’s asked Mrs Clarke to dinner, because of course she offered to do the cooking, and she’s made the pudding and actually found some brandy for the sauce …’

‘She’s ever so nice,’ Joy said sleepily. ‘Only she’ll have to bring perishin’ Dilly. They say chicken bones can kill dogs if they crunch them up … if I was to slip one or two under the table …’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Gillian said confidently. ‘I know she’s snappy and smelly, but it would be murder and I know you wouldn’t do that, nor me neither. Besides, I dare say Dilly’s company for Mrs Clarke when we aren’t around.’

‘Mmm, hmm,’ Joy droned. ‘Goo’night, Gillian. Sleep dreams.’

Gillian chuckled. ‘It’ll be morning before you know it,’ she said before she followed her sister’s example, and slept.

‘Dinner’s on the table! Come along, Grandma, Uncle Perce!’ Joy’s shrill voice reached the two adults sitting in the parlour, placidly listening to the wireless and occasionally commenting on the good smells coming from the kitchen. ‘Mrs Clarke’s just putting the vegetables out and Daddy’s carving the bird … oh, the bread sauce is still on the back of the stove, but come through anyway.’