The September Girls (59 page)

‘What’s that, Mammy?’ she asked curiously when a tiny trickle of blood ran down her palm.

‘Blood, sweetheart. Nancy, would you mind putting something on it? You’re not to touch the flowers again, Kitty, until me and Gran have cut the thorns off.’

‘She didn’t cry,’ Brenna marvelled. ‘If you’d done something like that at her age, Cara, you’d’ve screamed your head off.’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’

‘Yes, you would.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘She wouldn’t have, Brenna,’ Nancy interjected. ‘She was a very brave little girl.’

‘Oh, well, perhaps it was our Fergus. I know one of you used to scream at the sight of blood.’

‘Shall we use the roses for the bouquet, the pansies for me and Kitty’s posies, and the carnations for buttonholes?’ Cara looked questioningly at her mother.

‘That’s fine with me, darlin’. How many buttonholes will we need?’

‘Let’s see.’ Cara screwed up her eyes and thought. She’d made a note of it somewhere, but couldn’t remember where she’d put it. ‘Three extra big ones for Fergus, Tyrone and me dad.’ Fergus had insisted Dad be invited to his wedding and Mam had agreed it was the proper thing to do. Not only that, she’d promised to speak to him civilly on the day. As Fielding’s father and stepmother had refused to come, saying they couldn’t face the journey all the way from Devon, Colm had offered to step in and give the bride away. Tyrone had managed to arrange to be best man, so all the Caffreys would be together for the first time in years. ‘Two more for you and Nancy,’ Cara continued, ‘and little ones for Eleanor, Hector, Oliver, the three Americans and the twelve people Fergus has invited from work.’

‘How many is that altogether?’ Brenna asked.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Cara confessed.

‘Five big ones and eighteen little ones,’ Nancy supplied.

‘Eleanor’s feelings might be hurt if she doesn’t get a big one.’

‘All right, Mam. Six big ones and seventeen little. Have we got enough safety pins?’

‘They’re in the bag with the silver paper,’ Nancy said. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d ask for them back before everyone goes home. I’m getting a bit short.’

Fielding came in wearing her dressing gown, having had her bath. ‘I washed my hair by accident. I forgot I was having it set. Did you know the sun’s come out?’

Brenna and Cara rushed over to the window and looked out - the sun didn’t shine through the basement window until midday. ‘So it has!’ Brenna breathed a sigh of relief. ‘It looks as if it’s going to be a lovely day.’

‘Lovely day,’ echoed Sean, banging his spoon on the table. ‘Lovely day, lovely day.’

‘Won’t Sean need a buttonhole?’ asked Brenna.

‘He’ll only eat it, Mam.’

‘Will I have a buttonhole?’ Kitty piped up.

‘No, sweetheart, we’re making you something called a posy instead.’

‘I promise not to eat it, Mammy.’

‘Good girl.’

‘Will you two be long with them flowers?’ Nancy demanded. ‘I’d hoped to have started on the sarnies by now and you’re in me way.’

‘We’ll be ages yet. Shall we take them up to the dining room, Mam?’

‘We’d better had.’

‘You’d better not be too long there, either,’ Nancy said. ‘I’ll be wanting to set that table soon for the reception.’ The reception was being held in Parliament Terrace, just a buffet meal laid out in the dining room that was big enough to hold everyone, so long as they all didn’t want to sit down. Once the speeches were over, they could take the food anywhere in the house.

‘Stop nagging, Nancy,’ Cara muttered.

They were sweeping up the flowers in their arms when there was a knock on the door. Nancy went to answer it and returned with a giant wedding cake, three tiers high, with figures of a bride and groom on top. Unlike Fergus, who would be wearing a new grey suit, the man sported a top hat and tails.

‘He looks like Fred Astaire,’ Brenna remarked.

Nancy gave the cake a tap and it responded with a hollow sound. It was made of cardboard and would fit over the very much smaller, but real cake she’d made. It was one of the realities of war, that icing sugar was no longer available in the shops, fruit was hard to get, eggs a rarity, nuts unheard of, so cakes for grand occasions like weddings and christenings were no longer available. People made do with imitation cakes, just for show, the one to be eaten merely a pale imitation of the real thing.

The Americans had offered to provide a feast, but Fielding had refused. ‘It wouldn’t be fair. It’s wartime, and I’d sooner have a wartime wedding, with everyone mucking in and bringing what they can. I’m sure they’ll enjoy it more that way.’

Cara had been inclined to agree, but Brenna and Nancy thought she was crazy. Brenna told her so, in her own blunt way, but Fielding had stubbornly shaken her head. ‘It’s
my
wedding and I don’t want to feel more advantaged than any other girl getting married on the same day. I’d feel uncomfortable, sitting down to cold ham and chicken and fresh tomatoes and every sort of pickle you can think of, with trifle and cream for afters. I’d sooner have spam sandwiches and stuff like that. The Yanks can bring a contribution like everybody else, but that’s all.’

It had proved a challenge, trying to get enough food together to feed twenty-seven people including the bride and groom, but Fergus kept bringing home tins of fruit and meat given to him by people at work, and Brenna, Eleanor and Nancy scoured the shops daily for any luxuries they could find. Between them, they had managed to acquire four tins of pilchards, two of sardines, a box of chocolate biscuits it was suspected were stale, half a pound of mixed fruit, three cracked eggs, two jars of jam, a bag of wholemeal flour and a packet of paper doilies. The fish would go in sandwiches, the eggs and the fruit had gone in the cake, and the jam and flour turned into jam tarts. The biscuits would be arranged decoratively on one of the doilies - at least they would look nice, even if they tasted horrible.

Cara and Brenna took the flowers upstairs. Kitty stayed to help Nancy with the sandwiches, while Sean watched, banging his spoon occasionally to remind people he was there. Fielding wandered around looking lost. Cara told her to dry her hair and get ready for the hairdresser’s. ‘Would you like me to help you?’

‘I can dry my own hair, thanks,’ was the curt reply.

‘I don’t know why she’s going to the hairdresser’s,’ Brenna remarked. ‘Her hair looks lovely as it is. Look at the way it’s drying into pretty little curls.’

‘It was her own idea, Mam.’

Fielding drifted away and Eleanor came in. ‘I’ve brought three loaves and my entire butter and margarine ration,’ she said. ‘I’ve got Hector staying and we’ll be eating dry bread all weekend, Oliver, too.’ She sat down. ‘Nancy ordered me to help with the flowers. Apparently, she wants this table soon. That bouquet looks very professional, Brenna, and the roses smell gorgeous. What shall I do?’

‘Buttonholes.’ Brenna pushed a tangle of carnations in front of her. ‘Just a single flower and a bit of fern and gypsy grass, then wrap silver paper around the stems.’

‘Why have some got three flowers and loads of fern and gypsy grass?’

‘They’re for the important people.’

‘What sort have I got?’ Eleanor asked, looking tense.

‘An important one.’

Eleanor relaxed. ‘The dining room looks lovely today. I used to think it terribly gloomy, but this house seems to know when the people in it are happy. I could feel it the minute I walked in, the atmosphere seems to tingle.’

Cara agreed. ‘I can feel it too. I’ve always been happy here - well, most of the time - but today feels extra special.’

‘It feels exactly the same as usual to me.’ Brenna counted the buttonholes. ‘We’ve still got another ten to do. Oh, by the way, El, our Tyrone came home from sea yesterday and brought a wedding present from your Sybil: a carved wooden coffee table, dead fancy. You wouldn’t believe the work that’s gone into it.’

‘How on earth did my Sybil meet your Tyrone?’ Eleanor’s eyes were round with astonishment.

‘I was dead surprised, too, but it seems they came across each other at Christmas in Bombay, then again a month later when his ship called in on the way home. She sent little presents for everyone - Tyrone’s bringing them to the reception.’

‘There’s nothing in it, is there?’ Eleanor looked quite agitated. ‘I mean they’re not romantically involved?’

Brenna looked up so quickly that her neck creaked. ‘It never entered me head they were. Your Sybil isn’t our Tyrone’s type.’

‘And Tyrone isn’t Sybil’s,’ Eleanor said tartly.

‘He never liked her when they were young.’

‘She didn’t like
him
!’

‘People can change, you know,’ Cara said.

Her mother turned on her. ‘Are you suggesting they
are
romantically involved?’

‘I’m doing no such thing, Mam, just saying that people can change.’

‘They don’t change
that
much,’ Eleanor murmured.

Nancy came in with Sean in her arms. ‘He fell asleep at the table, Cara. You’d better put him down for a while. It must be because he got up so early.’

Cara got to her feet with alacrity, only too glad to escape the tension in the room. Mam and Eleanor would be best friends again in no time, but she’d sooner be somewhere else until it happened. She took Sean; she’d been badly neglecting her children all morning.

‘What’s Kitty doing?’ she asked.

‘Right now, mashing up the sardines for sarnies. She’s not a bit in the way.’

‘Has Mam told you,’ Cara whispered when they were in the hall, ‘that our Tyrone brought back a wedding present from Sybil? They met each other in Bombay.’

‘She hasn’t told me, no.’ Nancy’s eyes gleamed with interest. ‘I wonder how they got on?’

‘I’ve no idea, but they met again a few weeks later. Now Mam and Eleanor are terrified they’re “romantically involved”.’ They grinned at each other.

‘It’ll set the cat among the pigeons if they are. Brenna loathes Sybil and Eleanor’s never had much time for your Tyrone.’

‘They more or less told each other that just now. If I were you, Nancy, I wouldn’t go in the dining room for a while. It’s very frosty in there.’

Sean stirred in her arms and she took him upstairs and laid him in his cot. He was big enough for a bed but, since he’d started walking, he was inclined to go for a little wander at night and a cot was safer. She spread a sheet over him, then sat on Kitty’s bed and watched him sleep, her heart swelling with love.

He was an adorable little boy, placid yet, at the same time, full of beans with an enormous sense of fun. It always amazed her that, at his age, he knew how to make people laugh with his funny faces and his ability to bend down and look at you upside down from between his legs. He was dark, like Marcus, with the same grey eyes and slightly olive skin. She prayed that he would grow up to be a happier person than his father - he seemed happy enough now, but perhaps Marcus had been full of fun when he was a baby.

Kitty tiptoed in and climbed on to her knee. ‘Are you tired, sweetheart? Would you like a little lie-down, too?’ Cara asked.

‘No,’ Kitty replied adamantly.

It was a stupid question to have asked. Kitty would never, never admit to feeling tired. For some reason, she considered it a weakness, yet her eyes were blinking drowsily. She badly needed a nap before the wedding.

‘I think I’ll lie down a minute and you can keep me company.’ Cara stretched out on the bed and hoped she wouldn’t go to sleep herself.

‘Awright, Mammy. Shall I sing you a lullaby?’

‘No, luv. Sean’s already asleep and it might wake him.’

‘Sean sleeps all the time.’

‘Not
all
the time.’

‘
Nearly
all the time.’

‘All right, Kitty,
nearly
all the time.’ Cara couldn’t be bothered arguing, knowing two-year-old Kitty was determined to have the last word, yet also knowing she shouldn’t give in so easily or her sweet little daughter would end up as spoilt as Sybil.

‘Caffrey!’ a voice said wretchedly. ‘Look at my hair!’

Cara sat up, pleased to see that Kitty had dropped off straight away. Fielding was standing in the doorway, her lovely blonde hair set in tight, unnatural waves, making her look very cheap, like a nightclub hostess in a film. ‘It looks very nice,’ she lied.

‘No, it doesn’t. Your mother just said it looks as if it’s been tortured.’

‘It’ll be hidden under your veil.’

Fielding sniffed tearfully. ‘I can’t spend the whole bloody day hidden under my veil. Anyway, it stinks something awful. It must be the setting lotion.’

Cara came out of the children’s room and closed the door. ‘Then wash it again and leave it to dry on its own.’

‘That’s a waste of half a crown.’

‘Would you rather waste half a crown or get married with tortured, smelly hair? It’s up to you.’

‘I’ll wash it again.’ She plodded dolefully into the bathroom. ‘That’s three bloody times in one morning.’

Cara found Nancy carrying trays of food from the kitchen up to the dining room. ‘I’ll give you a hand. Where is everyone?’

‘Your mam’s gone home for her wedding outfit and Eleanor to the hairdresser’s. She goes to some dead posh place in town, so she’s not likely to come back looking like Fielding. Did you see her?’ Nancy asked indignantly. ‘The poor little lamb looked a sight.’

‘She’s washing it again right now.’

‘Good thing, too. I’ve never been near a hairdresser’s in me life. Oh, the Americans have been and gone gallivanting off again. Nelson can’t come, he’s on guard duty, or something, so they’ve brought someone else along instead. I said no one’d mind. They promised to be in the church by two o’clock. Don’t tell Fielding, but they brought all sorts of tinned stuff and two giant pieces of ham, already cooked, I’m pleased to say, not to mention enough beer to drown a cow.’ Nancy paused for breath. ‘Would you like to give me a hand to slice the ham, pet? It means we’ll need knives and forks on the table.’