The Londoners (8 page)

‘No,’ Miss Godfrey said, picking up one of the boxes and placing it in Kate’s arms. ‘I
do
have some good china, left to me by my mother, but I wouldn’t
dream of lending it out.’ An edge of rare humour entered her voice. ‘And
certainly
not for a wedding thrash in the church hall!’

She slipped the carrier-bag’s string handles over her wrist and picked up the second box. ‘I do enjoy weddings,’ she said confidingly, ‘especially summer weddings. I was
so pleased when I received an invitation to this particular wedding and I was more than a little surprised. Caroline and I have had our differences of opinion in the past as I’m sure you must
be aware.’

Kate made a polite, non-committal murmur and wondered whether, if Carrie’s vowels were less than perfect when she made her wedding vows, Miss Godfrey would speak up from wherever she was
sitting in the church and publicly correct her.

As Miss Godfrey led the way back down the hall to the front door, Kate had a glimpse into the sitting-room from another angle. This time as well as the glass-fronted bookcase and the armchair
she could see the corner of a distinguished-looking fireplace and, sitting by the corner of a highly-polished brass fender, a teddy bear.

Kate’s eyes widened. It was a teddy bear she recognized. It was the teddy bear Charlie Robson had won in the church fête raffle two years ago.

Highly bemused and feeling a surge of empathy for Miss Godfrey, she followed her out of the house.

‘I last loaned out my china when the vicar celebrated his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,’ Miss Godfrey said as they began to walk across the grass towards the church. ‘That
was a very decorous occasion. I have a feeling tomorrow’s festivities might be a little more . . . lively.’

Kate thought of Mavis and her children and of Bonzo in his blue satin bow and of the many market traders who would be there and thought Miss Godfrey was probably underestimating things a
little.

The minute they entered the hall adjoining the church, Miriam Jennings, dressed in a flowered overall and with her hair in curlers and bound up in a headscarf tied turban-fashion, hurried
towards them.

‘Is that the china?’ she asked. ‘Lovely. We can make a start and get the tables laid.’

‘I see you’ve got them set out already,’ Miss Godfrey said, looking around at the dozen wooden trestle tables that served St Mark’s for every event from fête to
funeral wakes.

‘Well, we couldn’t ’ang about, could we?’ Miriam said practically. ‘It’s goin’ to be enough of a rush in the mornin’. ’Ave you brought fruit
bowls as well as plates? ’Ettie’s done enough fruit trifle to feed an army.’

‘I’ve brought a dozen glass dessert dishes,’ Miss Godfrey said, anxious to please. ‘They won’t go very far I’m afraid, but it’s the best I can
do.’

‘They’ll be a great help,’ Miriam said, taking the box from Miss Godfrey’s arms. ‘Come and ’ave a look at the cake. ’Ettie made it and it’s a
smasher.’

Deciding she might as well stay for a little while and help with the laying of the tables, Kate followed Miriam and Miss Godfrey to the far end of the hall where the cake stood in three-tiered
magnificence on a table all to itself.

‘Ain’t it grand?’ Miriam said proudly, adjusting the two little figures symbolizing the bride and groom on the top tier.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Miss Godfrey said, wisely not commenting on Mrs Collins’s rather disastrous efforts to stain the imitation groom’s night-black hair to a dull red
with cochineal.

‘How are you doing, ladies?’ Albert Jennings called out to them cheerily as he struggled past carrying several folding chairs, a similarly laden Charlie Robson in his wake.
‘Have you got your glad-rags ready for tomorrer?’

‘I have indeed, Mr Jennings,’ Miss Godfrey said, guessing correctly that he was referring to the outfit she intended wearing.

The church hall doors were kicked open with such a clatter that Miriam nearly jumped out of her skin and Charlie dropped one of the chairs he was carrying.

It was Mavis, a heavy carrier-bag in either hand. ‘You need to wedge this bloomin’ door open so we can get in and out a bit easier,’ she said to no-one in particular. Crossing
the wood-boarded floor towards her mother and Miss Godfrey and Kate, she dumped her cargo on the nearest table. ‘’As anyone seen our Billy? I ’ad a bobby at the door five minutes
ago. ’E said Billy ’ad fired a broom handle from the roof of Nibbo’s shed and it ’ad landed in a front garden in Magnolia ’ill.’

‘Then ’e’s talkin’ out of the back of ’is ’ead,’ Miriam said, opening one of the carrier-bags Mavis had put on the table. ’E’d ’ave
’ad to fire it over the flippin’ rooftops for it to reach a front garden in Magnolia ’ill from Nibbo’s tool shed.’ She lifted a stack of crockery from the carrier-bag.
‘These blue and white plates do look nice, don’t they? They’ll match the bridesmaids’ dresses a treat.’

‘Accordin’ to the bobby it did go over the rooftops,’ Mavis said, parental pride in her voice. ‘Apparently Billy pinched a plank of wood from the shed and bent it into a
giant-sized bow. With that and the ’elp of a clothes-line, he could probably have fired the broom ’andle into the Thames. Only trouble was, ’e’d sharpened one end of it into
a point and it nearly impaled a poor old codger doin’ ’is garden.’

‘Boys will be boys,’ Miriam said philosophically. ‘’ave you brought any trifle dishes? We’re runnin’ low on trifle dishes.’

With laughter choking in her throat, Kate said, ‘I’m going now. I’ll see you all tomorrow.’

‘And I must be going too,’ Miss Godfrey said hastily.

Very briskly she led the way to the door, efficiently propping it open with the nearest chair to hand and then, when they were safely some distance away, she said to a still laughing Kate,
‘A broom handle over the rooftops for goodness sake! Billy Lomax is more of a death threat than Hitler’s army! It could quite easily have killed someone and yet neither his mother nor
his grandmother seemed to think it at all reprehensible.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘That family really is quite extraordinary. I wouldn’t put it past them to have Bonzo in
church tomorrow, a ribbon round his neck.’

Containing a fresh surge of laughter only with the greatest difficulty, Kate said as demurely as possible, ‘Neither would I, Miss Godfrey.’

Miss Godfrey looked across at her suspiciously, about to ask if she knew things about the wedding arrangements that she wasn’t revealing and then, deciding she might sleep easier if she
was left in ignorance, she said dryly, ‘Life isn’t dull in Magnolia Square, is it? I thought I’d heard everything when Miss Helliwell told me she’d asked Mr Nibbs to adapt a
child’s gas mask in order that it could be worn by her cat.’

‘Did he succeed?’ Kate asked, knowing that if he had done Mrs Singer would want a similarly adapted gas mask for Bonzo.

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Miss Godfrey said as they reached her gate. ‘I certainly haven’t seen Faust rigged and accoutred, nor do I particularly want to. In
comparison, however, the Jennings’ family’s antics make Miss Helliwell’s flights of fancy seem quite rational.’

Kate felt laughter again begin to bubble up in her throat. ‘Goodbye Miss Godfrey,’ she said, looking forward to seeing Miss Godfrey’s face when she saw Bonzo in his bow,
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, in church.’

‘Goodbye, Katherine,’ Miss Godfrey said, looking forward to a little peace and quiet and a nice cup of tea. ‘Sleep well.’

Later, freshly bathed and with her heavy waist-length hair shampooed and hanging loose, Kate sat dressed in a white terry dressing gown near the open window of her bedroom. It was nearly nine
o’clock and the hot summer evening was pleasantly cool as dusk approached. She rested her chin in her hands, her elbows on the windowsill, looking out over Magnolia Square.

Charlie Robson was walking Queenie across the grass surrounding the church. Miss Godfrey was watering her sweet peas, Mr Nibbs was sitting in a deck-chair, his head slumped a little to one side
as if he had fallen asleep and Miss Helliwell was anxiously calling Faust in for his supper. In nearly every garden that she could see, magnolia shrubs and trees were in flower. On the far side of
the Square, the Collins’s
magnolia grandiflora
was heavy with creamy-white blossom. Yards away from the church porch a
magnolia parviflora
was thick with pendants of white
petals starred by wine-coloured stamens.

Smiling again at the thought of the gas mask Mr Nibbs had adapted for Faust, she wondered how Carrie would now be feeling. After tomorrow, the rest of her life would be irrevocably different.
She wondered how she herself would feel if she were about to be married. Would she be nervous? Would she have any last minute doubts? And where, at this precise moment in time, was the man she
would one day marry? Was he half a world away or only a few miles away? Would she fall in love with him the instant she set eyes on him or would it be a long, slow, gradual process?

Her hair was dry now and she turned away from the window and began to brush it. Normally she would also have braided it but tomorrow she was going to wear it in an elegant Grecian knot and she
wanted it to be smooth and kink-free. Twisting its long length as if it were a skein of heavy wool, she secured the end with a piece of cotton and then took off her dressing gown and climbed into
bed.

There was a tap on her door and without opening it her father said, ‘Goodnight,
Liebling
,’ as he did every night.

She smiled lovingly. There were some advantages to not being in love and engaged. She wasn’t having to face the prospect of moving far away from Magnolia Square as Carrie might have to do
in order to remain near to Danny.

‘Goodnight, Dad,’ she said, nestling down against her pillows, unable to even imagine living anywhere else but the house in which she had been born. ‘God Bless.’

‘And did everything go off without a hitch?’ Miss Pierce asked Kate on Monday lunchtime as they sat together in the small canteen that catered for the needs of
Harvey’s office staff.

Kate thought of Carrie looking almost regal in her sumptuous satin wedding-gown, her face aglow with happiness as she walked down St Mark’s aisle on her father’s arm; of Miss
Helliwell, draped in chiffon and triumphantly announcing to everyone that she had foreseen the wedding two years ago; of Miss Godfrey almost unrecognizable in a silk dress instead of her customary
tweed suit; of the sentimental tears shed by Mrs Collins and Carrie’s mother and of the gales of laughter that had rocked the church hall during the reception and the long evening of dancing
that had followed.

There had been one incident that had marred the day, but only for herself, and she had no intention of discussing the incident with Miss Pierce.

‘Everything went off beautifully,’ she said, putting to the back of her mind the moment during the evening celebrations when Mr Nibbs and Daniel Collins and Charlie Robson had been
grouped together nearby her, speculating as to the likelihood of war with Germany. Her father had approached them carrying a tray of drinks and as he did so the subject under discussion had
abruptly swung from speculation about German intent to the latest cricket scores.

Her father had been happily unaware that the conversation had been doctored for his benefit but she had been acutely aware of it. She had also been uncertain as to how she felt about it. The
most sensible way would have been to view it as being merely over-tactful, but the more she thought about her father’s friends feeling that such tact was necessary, the less she liked it. It
raised the suspicion that they were afraid of his taking Germany’s part, of perhaps even speaking in Hitler’s defence. It certainly meant they no longer thought of him as being one of
themselves.

‘And what about the little bridesmaid the bride was so worried about?’ Miss Pierce asked with genuine interest. ‘Did she behave herself?’

Kate grinned. ‘At the precise moment Carrie was promising to love, honour and obey, Beryl asked the vicar if she could have an orange. Before she could be silenced she explained to him
that she’d been promised one if she was a good little girl and that she’d been a good little girl and was now hungry. It threw the vicar off his stroke rather and I’m sure the
bride could have murdered her, but it was the only time she put a foot wrong.’

‘And did she get her orange?’ Miss Pierce asked, highly entertained.

‘Her grandad gave her one the minute we all left the church. Neither her mother or grandmother were very pleased as she insisted on sucking at it all the time the photographs were being
taken.’

Miss Pierce’s smile of amusement deepened. The stiff demeanour that her colleagues found so intimidating masked shyness and she had never before come so near to forming a friendship with
another member of staff. That she was now doing so with a young woman twenty years her junior both surprised and pleased her.

‘What a wonderful day you must all have had,’ she said, carefully folding the greaseproof paper that had wrapped her home-made sandwiches and sliding it into the outer pocket of her
capacious handbag. ‘I almost feel as if I know some of your neighbours, especially Miss Helliwell, Miss Godfrey and Mrs Lomax.’