The Heart of the Family (31 page)

She had said as much to the most senior nurse at the crèche and suggested that maybe they should try to cheer everyone up by having a small party for the mothers and the children.

Mrs Walsh had been enthusiastic and full of praise for Bella for making such a suggestion, which Bella personally felt was undeserved, but she had put Lena in charge of thinking up games for everyone to play whilst she herself had been firmly but tactfully working on their suppliers to try to get a few extras in their grocery orders, whilst she had coaxed Cook into offering to pare down the meals a little bit so that she would have enough left over to do a proper Christmas party buffet for the crèche.

Christmas – how fast it had come round again but this year there would be no chance of Luke making it home to share it with them, Jean acknowledged as she sat at her kitchen table looking at the list she had made. She’d got the turkey ordered, and she’d had to go back to that rascal she always seemed to end
up ordering from even though she was sure he overcharged.

The back door flew open and Grace almost tumbled into the kitchen, her cheeks flushed with happiness and excitement, as she exclaimed, ‘Mum, I’ve passed, and with flying colours. I’m a fully qualified nurse.’ She did a few dance steps of joy and twirled round, laughing with relief and excitement.

Putting down her list Jean went over to her and hugged her tight.

‘Oh, I’m that pleased for you, love,’ she told her.

‘So am I,’ Grace admitted breathlessly. ‘I’ve run all the way from the hospital to tell you. Matron only sent for me after dinner, and then Sister said that I could have a bit of extra time for my tea break so that I could come home to tell you. I telephoned Seb from the hospital.’ Grace, who hadn’t yet stopped to draw breath, chuckled and continued, ‘He knows now that there’s no chance of the wedding being cancelled, so he’s lost his last opportunity to escape.’

‘As if he’d want to,’ Jean chided her eldest daughter. ‘I’ve never known a man more eager to walk his girl down the aisle on his arm as his wife than Seb.’

Grace gave her mother a happy smile. What she had said was after all true. Since that dreadful weekend when they had so nearly parted Seb had made sure that Grace and everyone else knew just how much she meant to him and how much he loved her.

‘Seb’s going to go ahead now and rent that little cottage I was telling you about, and Matron has said that whilst she doesn’t want to lose me, she’s prepared to recommend me to the new hospital near to
Whitchurch they’ve set up for the war. And Auntie Fran saying that she’s brought me a wedding dress back from Egypt just makes everything perfect.’

Jean forced herself to smile. She knew she was going to miss Grace when she moved to Whitchurch but she didn’t for one moment want to cast any shadows over her daughter’s happiness, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell her how shocked she had been by Fran’s casual declaration in her last letter that she was now a married woman, married to some American she had known only a matter of weeks.

At least Francine was coming to the wedding so Jean knew that she’d have an opportunity to check for herself to see whether or not her younger sister was truly happy. She hadn’t, though, said whether or not she would be accompanied by her husband. But then there was nothing strange in that: a man in uniform wasn’t always free to attend family events. He had his duty to perform, after all. An American, though. Her Sam would have something to say about that, Jean was pretty sure.

Grace looked at her mother. She knew how hard it would be for her parents not to have her brother, Luke, there either for Christmas or for her own wedding, and hard too for Katie who, along with the twins, was going to be Grace’s bridesmaid.

‘I wish in a way that we hadn’t had to invite Auntie Vi and her family,’ Bella told Jean, trying not to sound as reluctant as she felt to have her mother’s twin sister and her family at her wedding. ‘You know what Auntie Vi is like. She’s bound to find fault with everything.’

‘I know what you mean, love, but it wouldn’t have been right not to invite them,’ Jean pointed out,
‘And I certainly don’t want them thinking that we haven’t invited them owing to some daft tit-for-tat nonsense because we weren’t invited to Charlie’s wedding.’

Grace looked worried. ‘You don’t think I should have asked Bella to be a bridesmaid as well, do you? I wouldn’t want to be rude or upset her, and she did ask me when she got married.’

‘Upset Bella?’ Jean didn’t have a very high opinion of her selfish and overindulged niece, but it was kind of Grace to have thought of her cousin.

‘Since she’s been married she couldn’t be a bridesmaid, she’d have to be your matron of honour, and that would set her over Katie and the twins, and I don’t think that would be fair really. After all, it will be Katie who will be doing the most to help you get everything ready.’

‘So you don’t think that I need to ask her then?’ Grace established, feeling relieved.

‘No, I don’t, love.’

‘I’d better get back, Mum. It was really good of Sister to let me come out at all. Oh, and the others that were in my set when we first started, and haven’t dropped out, have passed as well.’

Two of the original six in the training set Grace had started with had left without finishing. One of these was the girl who had pursued Luke and then dropped him for a young doctor, who had then dropped her, and the other was a girl who had missed her family so much that she had left to go home.

‘All we need now is for the twins to get taken on full time once their probationary period is up,’ Grace announced gaily as she hugged her mother.

Jean nodded. She didn’t want to spoil her elder
daughter’s moment of excited happiness by telling her that Sasha had already confided to her that she was worried because Lou had been told off so often by their supervisor for making mistakes. When Jean had tackled Lou about Sasha’s worried comments Lou had lost her temper and had accused Sasha of telling tales behind her back, complaining that her twin had changed since she’d ‘gone all soppy’ about that UXB lad Bobby.

Jean was a twin herself and her heart had sunk as she had listened to Lou. She and Vi might never have been as close as Lou and Sasha but it had still hurt her when she and Vi had gone their separate ways. At the same time Jean also recognised that it was important that as young women the twins did have lives independent from one another. She had, though, also hoped that Sasha and Lou would keep some of the closeness they had always shared. There were, after all, some things that happened in a woman’s life than even the best of husbands could not always understand in the way that a loving sister, especially a twin sister, could; all those small domestic anxieties that women worried about so much, especially when they involved the health and happiness of their children; problems as a young wife and mother that a tired husband coming in for his tea after a hard day’s work might not have the patience with that a twin sister would.

‘Oh, and will you tell Katie for me as well, Mum, please?’ Grace sang out halfway through the back door. ‘I feel ever so sorry for her, I really do, with Luke so far away and Christmas just round the corner.’

Jean agreed. Katie was someone else she was
worrying over. Katie was by nature a quiet girl, who didn’t say anything unless she had something to say, but it seemed to Jean that she had been even quieter than usual just lately. She didn’t want to pry, of course, but she genuinely did have a special place in her heart for her son’s fiancée and it upset her to think of Katie being unhappy in any way for the girl’s own sake. She knew that Katie and Luke had had their moments. Luke was a wonderful son, but there was no getting away from the fact that he was inclined to be a bit jealous as well as naturally protective of Katie, and Jean just hoped that there hadn’t been some upset between them in their letters. She had tried to coax out of Katie if anything was wrong between them but Katie had just given her such a wonderfully radiant smile as she shook her head that Jean knew she ought to have been reassured. But somehow she wasn’t.

‘And Gavin said to tell you that if you still don’t think that the yellow is deep enough then he can mix it a bit deeper,’ Lena told Bella.

They were in the nursery studying the still damp wall that Gavin had industriously painted whilst Bella had been with Vi. Even on a horrible grey day like this one the yellow distemper gave the room a lovely sunny glow, like the inside of a buttercup, Bella thought as she admired it.

‘You’ve had a visitor as well, ever such a nice man. He arrived just as Gavin was leaving and explained that his mother and sister used to billet with you. I was a bit worried about letting him in at first but Gavin really took to him so I knew it would be all right,’ Lena informed Bella happily.

Jan. It could only have been Jan who had called, but what on earth for, Bella wondered, her pleasure in the yellow wall fading to be replaced with an edgy defensiveness she hadn’t felt for so long that for a few seconds she didn’t really know just what it was that was making her so cross and anxious.

‘I can’t imagine why he called here,’ she told Lena sharply, ‘or what he could have wanted.’

‘I think he just wanted to see you. He asked how you were and said that he’d heard from his sister about how you’d been promoted at the crèche. Perhaps he’s sweet on you,’ Lena suggested, watching Bella to see how her friend would respond.

Lena often wondered why someone as special and marvellous as Bella didn’t have a man in her life, and when she had opened the door to the handsome Pole who had come round asking after Bella she had immediately wondered if they were romantically involved, and had even felt a bit disappointed that Bella had never mentioned him to her.

‘Sweet on me?’ Bella just about managed to stop herself telling Lena that Jan loathed and despised her. ‘I hope he isn’t,’ she said as robustly as she could, ‘seeing as he’s married.’

Lena would certainly never make a good card player, Bella thought ruefully, because she was no good at hiding what she was thinking. An expression of open disappointment was clouding her eyes, and she burst out, ‘Oh, what a shame. I thought he was so perfect for you. You are so very pretty and he is so good-looking, and he was really interested when I told him all about how kind you’ve been to me.’

Bella groaned inwardly. Oh, yes, she could just imagine how interested in that Jan would have been. Right now he was probably reporting everything Lena had told him to his sister, who was as cynically contemptuous of her as he was. No doubt the two of them were having a good laugh at her expense. Well, let them. She didn’t care.

‘I hope I haven’t done the wrong thing?’ Lena was asking, looking crestfallen.

Bella smiled reassuringly at her and then went over
and gave her a hug. Lena was getting larger by the day and Bella’s arms wouldn’t go right around her now, which caused them both to giggle.

‘Of course you didn’t …’ Bella began to say, and then stopped and told Lena, ‘Oh, he is definitely going to be a footballer, Lena. He’s just kicked me twice!’

‘Oh, he hasn’t, has he? He was ever so active last night, keeping me awake and kicking away like mad.’

They had both taken by now to referring to the baby as ‘he’ without actually having made a decision to do so, and his energetic kicks kept them both amused.

‘Anyway,’ Lena told Bella, her expression softening with genuine love, and admiration, ‘I only told that Jan the truth when I said how you saved me and the baby, and how special you are and how much you’ve done for me.’

Seeing Lena’s eyes fill up with tears, Bella told her briskly, ‘Now that’s enough of that. I don’t want my head getting so swelled that I can’t get through the doorway.’

Lena giggled but Bella felt her own tears weren’t very far away.

Lena’s comment had, though, reminded her of her duty to Lena’s future and that of her baby, and so she said as lightly as she could, ‘Talking of people being sweet on people, it seems to me that a certain young man isn’t coming round here just to paint nursery walls.’

Lena blushed hotly and looked uncomfortable.

Bella frowned slightly and said, ‘I thought you liked Gavin.’

‘Yes, I do,’ Lena admitted, ‘but I wouldn’t want you or him getting the wrong idea, Bella. I mean, it’s very kind of him to come round like he does and
not accept any payment for painting the nursery but he’s only doing it because it’s what his grandma has asked him to do. He’s told me that.’

Bella frowned. She certainly hadn’t got the impression that Gavin was practically haunting the doorstep because he wanted to please his grandmother, but she didn’t want to put Lena in a position where the younger girl felt obliged to say she cared more for Gavin than she actually did because she thought that was what Bella wanted her to say.

As Bella had quickly come to learn, along with the pleasure of having Lena admire her so much had come the responsibility of making sure that Lena didn’t do things she didn’t really want to do just to please her.

‘Well, if he’s told you that then I’m sure it must be true,’ she said as lightly as she could.

Lena gave a vigorous nod of her head and tried to smile, but in reality she didn’t feel much like smiling. She had been so happy earlier in the afternoon, sitting watching Gavin paint and then giving him her opinion of the colour when he asked her for it. It had felt so cosy and lovely, him in his overalls painting, her sitting on what Bella called a ‘pouffe’ watching him, just like a proper family where girls who were having babies also had husbands and those husbands loved them.

Thinking that had somehow or other led to her saying happily to Gavin, ‘It’s really nice having you here. It makes me feel ever so happy, Gavin.’

‘Well, it’s me gran that said that I should come and give a hand, and of course she’s always wanting to know about how you’re going on,’ he had responded, and Lena had known from the tone of his voice and the way he kept his back to her as he
spoke that somehow her comment had not been what he wanted to hear and that his answer to her was a warning to that effect.

She had felt ashamed of herself for the way her eyes had filled with tears and she had gone all shaky and unhappy, so she had stood up and given him a smile and had told him as brightly as she could, ‘I’d better get back downstairs. Bella had a letter from her brother this morning and she said he asked her about me and the baby in it.’

Gavin’s only response had been a disinterested grunt, so Lena had fled to the kitchen where she had tried to cheer herself up by singing along to the wireless. It wasn’t after all a lie that Charlie had asked after her, and it was no one’s business but hers if she didn’t tell Gavin that Charlie had gone on to say that he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with her or the baby and that he’d only mentioned them in the first place to warn Bella not to write anything about them in any letters in the future.

Not that she was bothered about that. She could hardly even remember what Charlie looked like now, never mind anything else, but she certainly didn’t want Gavin getting the wrong idea. After all, it would be downright silly of her to think that a decent respectable lad like him could ever think of getting involved with a girl like her who had let herself down good and proper and who was going to have a baby without a husband, to prove it.

‘Oh, come on, what harm will it do?’ Carole demanded as she and Katie leaned on the rail of the packed ice rink, watching the twins skate.

Katie frowned as she turned to her friend and
pointed out uncomfortably, ‘I’d really rather not, Carole. It doesn’t seem right, with Luke and Andy so far away and fighting for this country, for us to be going out dancing with two Irish lads who aren’t even in uniform.’

Katie could see that her friend wasn’t at all pleased to hear what she had said. It was her turn to frown now and not just frown but look a bit cross as well.

‘I suppose you’re afraid that one of those twins of your Luke’s mother’s will go writing to him telling tales.’

‘I am not afraid of any such thing,’ Katie snapped at her, pink-cheeked. ‘Jean would never send a letter to Luke saying something she thought might upset him, and neither would the twins, just as I would never do anything that would upset him.’

‘Liam said that you’d be too scared, but I told him that he was wrong, and now you’re letting me down by proving that he was right.’

Katie could feel her heart sinking with genuine distress at the growing discovery of how differently she and Carole thought and felt about the responsibilities that went with being engaged, and a sharp touch of anger that Carole should think she could manipulate her by making such a silly and obvious comment.

‘I’m not the one who is letting anyone down,’ she pointed out firmly. In addition to her unease and anger, there was another issue here that went beyond her personal feelings. It was one that Katie had been wanting to raise with Carole ever since she had begun to realise how much Carole was enjoying the company of the young Irishman she had met. But it was also one that was getting harder with every week that passed, with
Carole continuing to sing Liam’s praises and do her utmost to persuade Katie to get as eagerly involved with Danny as she was with Liam. That issue was one of the duty they owed their country; a duty that, so far as Katie was concerned, was all the stronger because of the confidential nature of the work in which they were involved.

It was true that Danny had never made any comments about her work other than continually to tease her about the fun she must have reading saucy messages meant for other eyes, but even those kind of comments were the sort that Katie didn’t really care for herself, and ones she knew Luke would consider far too intimate to be passed from another man to her, his girl. If Seb had not been transferred to Whitchurch she suspected that she would have been tempted to confide in him and ask for his advice, as he had once told her she must feel free to do, should the need arise.

Where other boys were concerned Katie knew where to draw the line. She wasn’t remotely interested in Danny, good-looking though he was, or anyone else. How could she be when she was already committed to Luke? But the Irish boys’ habit of managing to materialise at their table whenever Katie went dancing with the twins was causing her to feel uncomfortable, and all the more so because of the way Carole was increasingly encouraging them. Carole’s present suggestion, that they should in effect agree to let the Liam and Danny partner them to the Grafton’s Christmas Eve Dance, was in many ways enough to make Katie consider whether or not she ought to be direct with her friend and tell her that she preferred not to continue a friendship with someone who would accept a date when she was as good as engaged. But Andy, Carole’s
fiancé, was not just one of Luke’s friends, he was also one of Luke’s men, and just as Luke took his responsibility as a corporal seriously where his men were concerned, so Katie felt that she as his fiancée was in a sense responsible for Carole and needed to look out for her, and for her relationship with Andy.

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Carole demanded, obviously taking umbrage at Katie’s comment.

‘You are as good as engaged to Andy, and Luke and I are engaged,’ Katie felt obliged to remind her.

Carole bristled and said crossly, ‘It’s just a bit of fun, Katie, going to one of the Christmas dances as a foursome and with a partner. The Irish boys know that we’re coupled up. There’s no harm in it. Anyway, Liam says that he reckons that our lads won’t be holding back over there in Cairo over Christmas when there’s dances on and plenty of girls around to have fun with.’

‘You
told
Liam that Luke and Andy are in Egypt?’ Katie couldn’t conceal her shock.

Carole tossed her head dismissively but her face went bright red, as she retaliated, ‘Well, and what if I have? Everyone knows that we’re out there fighting the Germans. Anyway, why shouldn’t Liam and Danny know where they are? We’re all on the same side, after all.’

Katie desperately wanted to remind her friend that Ireland was neutral but she suspected that to do so would provoke even more sharp words from her, and the last thing she wanted to do was instigate a row.

She wasn’t going to agree to Carole’s plans for the Christmas Eve Dance, though.

‘Well, are you going to come to the Grafton then?’
Carole challenged her, adding, ‘You’d better, because I’m going to look a real idgit if you don’t.’

‘Idgit’ was one of Liam’s favourite words and it gave Katie a horrible feeling in her tummy to hear Carole using it in an automatic imitation of Liam’s soft accent. A person didn’t do that unless they were already getting involved with someone.

‘No, I shan’t be going,’ she told Carole quietly. ‘After all, it was at the Grafton last Christmas Eve that me and Luke met up for the first time, just like you and Andy,’ she felt obliged to remind the other girl.

‘Well, please yourself, but I’m going and I think you’re a fool for staying in when you could be going out having fun. Like Liam said, I’ll bet that Andy and Luke won’t be sitting in their camp thinking about us.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Katie agreed coolly. ‘After all, for all we know they could be out in the desert fighting for us and for this country.’

Without waiting for Carole to respond she waved her hand in the direction of the twins and walked along the side of the ice rink in front of the seats, leaving Carole standing on her own.

Since the twins possessed only one pair of skates between them, Katie had loaned Lou her pair so that she and Sasha could skate together. They came skimming across the ice towards her now, taking hold of the rail as they leaned in to her. Sasha was glowing with happiness, her cheeks pink and her eyes alight with enjoyment. Lou, though, wasn’t smiling at all.