A Mistletoe Kiss (40 page)

And they did.

Although Hetty had come back to Liverpool for the wedding, she and Agatha had not had much chance of the sort of heart-to-heart they usually enjoyed, but once she was back on the boat, and Agatha was once more in charge of the lending library, letters began to be exchanged once more. Agatha noted the fact that despite the distance now separating them, for Gareth had been posted to Scampton as he had hoped, Hetty was still in touch with the young man. For all her talk, she was fonder of him than she was prepared to admit, Agatha believed, and was glad. The unknown motorcyclist was just that – unknown – but she, Agatha, had taken to Gareth on sight when he came looking for Hetty all those years ago, and knew that the Heskeths liked him too. However, it was Hetty's business on whom she bestowed her heart; Agatha just hoped that it would not be on someone totally unworthy.

When she picked up her letters one bright April morning and carried them into the kitchen with her, she hoped that the one addressed in Hetty's round, rather childish writing would contain good news. The promised leave had still not materialised, but in her last letter Hetty had mentioned that the girls were
expecting a visit from an Inland Waterways official, and were keeping their fingers crossed for a decision. Agatha ripped open the envelope, glanced quickly over the two flimsy pages it contained, then smiled at her mother. ‘Wonderful! She's coming back at the end of the month; I'll read it to you when I get back from the library, but isn't that good news? Cheerio Mother.'

Later sitting at her desk in the library, she read the letter smiling to herself.

Dear Agatha
,

How strange it still seems to write ‘Mrs Galera' on my letters to you, but I'm growing accustomed. In reply to your enquiry we are all well and growing fonder of the dear old
Shamrock
with every day that passes. We are an experienced team now (I suppose I should say ‘crew') but as we pointed out when the man came visiting from Inland Waterways, just because we are good that shouldn't mean we don't need time off occasionally – proper time off, sufficient to get back home to see our people. The man agreed, went away, and the result is that the powers that be have decided the easiest way to give us a decent bit of leave is to lay up the
Shamrock
and the
Clover
for ten days. They'll be in a secure anchorage, in some sort of compound, probably at the London end of our run, so with a bit of luck the three of us will be free at the end of April. They haven't told us yet when or where we are to hand over
Shamrock
and
Clover,
and I haven't looked up the times of trains, but I imagine I should be with
you on the 28th or 29th – hope this is all right. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it
.

Love
,

Hetty

Agatha pushed the letter into her pocket and stood up. She would get the kettle going so that Mr Gower, when he arrived, could have a nice hot cup of tea. Like herself, he had spent the previous night fire-watching, and she knew from odd remarks he let drop that his mother was not only old but also cantankerous. Both in the previous December and also in March, when Liverpool had been targeted by the Luftwaffe, old Mrs Gower had complained of difficulty in sleeping, and, regardless of the fact that her son had been working day and night, she had made the raids an excuse for not rising in time to get him breakfast.

Agatha had telephoned Max the previous evening and they had talked for fully ten minutes before the switchboard had informed them sharply that others were waiting for the line. Now, still feeling a warm glow, for Max had ended the conversation with the words ‘I love you, sweetheart', she decided that as she was in early enough she would make tea and toast for her colleague on the little gas ring in the office. She knew Mr Gower was going to miss her when she joined Max in Scotland, so it would be a little attention which he would appreciate. He had attended the wedding reception and given her a pretty carriage clock, but he had not been able to hide his envy of Max.

Feeling self-righteous, Agatha went into the kitchen,
filled the kettle and balanced it on the gas ring, then got half a loaf out of the makeshift breadbin in which they secured their odds and ends of food – the library harboured more than one family of mice – and cut two thick slices. As she lit the gas, however, Mrs Hibbert came in and Agatha, smiling at her, explained that she was making Mr Gower some breakfast, as his mother did not always do so.

Mrs Hibbert tutted. ‘I'll do it, so you can get on,' she said, pulling up a chair and stabbing one of the pieces of bread with an ancient toasting fork. There was no butter – butter was rationed, and pretty strictly at that – but margarine would have to do. Soon, the kettle began to whistle and the first round of bread was toasted to a nice brown.

Agatha returned to the counter and began to stack the ordered books into a neat pile, then sniffed; her helper had burned the second piece of toast and was vigorously scraping it. To be sure, Agatha thought, she was tired, but today was going to be a good day. Hetty had written and would be returning to Liverpool in a couple of weeks' time, no doubt full of her adventures on the canal.

Agatha wished she had more exciting news to share with her young friend, but her life seemed to consist of nothing but working in the library all day and then taking part in any war-related work she could do. Now that he was living in Scotland, she and Max had to make do with telephone calls and letters. But even receiving his letters thrilled Agatha, made her feel … oh, wanted. So now she sang, and wished that Max
were here and not far away. She saw her first borrower approaching, a bag of books in one hand, and scurried back to her place behind the counter. The woman beamed at her.

‘Mornin,' Miss Preece! I see'd Mr Gower a-comin' up the road; is that burnt toast I smell? Your boss ain't goin' to be too pleased if you've charred his breakfast!'

Cyril Gower blinked with loathing at the sunshine as he got off his tram at the top of Heyworth Street and headed for the library. He felt tired from a night spent fire-watching and stiff from only having had two hours' sleep. He also felt bad-tempered because he had picked up the box of his favourite cereal from the pantry shelf only to find it empty, and when he had decided to make do with coffee and toast, the loaf was stale and the milk in the enamel jug on the slate slab was sour. It was enough, the librarian decided, to put any man into a bad temper; now he would have to do a full day's work on an empty stomach. For a moment he almost wished himself young enough to be conscripted into one of the armed services; he was sure they were provided with breakfast. He imagined a plate piled with bacon, fried bread and delicious, golden-yolked eggs, a pre-war breakfast, but then he thought about marching and drilling, and remembered his flat feet and the miserable little pay packets members of the forces received, and almost decided that being a librarian was preferable.

He was still considering what sort of day lay ahead
of him when the sight of a small boy carrying a model yacht brought to mind the drama of Dunkirk, which had happened in June the previous year, with the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force from the Huns. He remembered the stories in the papers of the men stranded on those long, pale beaches, the little boats, some under sail, going to and fro, back and forth, rescuing those same unfortunates, a modern St Crispin's Day. Mr Gower had almost wished he could have been a part of it, and now he could hear in his mind Shakespeare's stirring words:

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, ‘These wounds I had on Crispin's day.
'

But life wasn't like that, not really. For a start, you had to suffer the wounds before you could have the scars, and he didn't imagine that that part of the quotation would be any fun at all.

Sighing, Cyril Gower rubbed his eyes, sore and reddened from staring into the dark sky the previous night for any sign of enemy aircraft, and cursed the sunshine, which had turned the milk sour so that even the consolation of coffee had been denied him. He also cursed his mother, who must have known the cereal box was empty, but who had not bothered to buy more. Then for good measure he cursed the library, the books, and the members, already making their way to St Domingo Road whilst he, damn it, was going to be late.

He had overslept, something that never happened
to him as a rule, not even after a night of fire-watching. He blamed his mother for that too. She should have woken him – she usually did so – but for some reason she too had overslept, and she had not been fire-watching. In fact she had been in bed the previous evening, snoring loudly, before he had even left the house. Making a mental vow to buy a new alarm clock to replace the one his mother had dropped a week earlier, Mr Gower hurried along the road. He knew Miss Preece had been fire-watching as well and wondered if she, too, might be late today. He hoped she would be. If he was actually in the library first, he could demand an explanation for her lateness, tell her fire-watching was no excuse; he himself was extremely tired but had still made it to work on time.

He turned on to St Domingo Road and glanced at the library, seeing at once that the metal gates had been pushed back. However tired she was, Miss Preece must have opened up on time. He climbed the steps and entered the building, feeling a moment of deep disappointment. He had been looking forward to venting his feelings on her by delivering a good telling-off; now it was he who was in the wrong. He could feel an irrational resentment towards his colleague rising within him, and when he smelt burning toast he thought this might well be his opportunity. She had no right to cook herself breakfast when the public were actually choosing books from the shelves. He would tick her off in front of the line of women already waiting to have their books date-stamped; that would teach her! He knew most of the library members assumed
he was Miss Preece's boss simply because he was a man, but in fact they were just colleagues; if anything, she was ahead of him in the hierarchy due to the fact that she had a first class honours degree.

Once, he had been sure that Miss Preece admired him, had believed in his heart that if he ever felt inclined to pop the question, she would fall into his hands like a ripe plum. Every woman, he was certain, wanted desperately to be married; why should she be the exception? He had thought, too, that they had a lot in common, both being burdened with old and crotchety mothers, and had imagined that this shared understanding would be a sufficient basis for a long and successful marriage.

Now, however, he went round the counter and tapped Miss Preece sharply on the shoulder. He began to ask her, loudly, how it was that he could smell burnt toast and was astonished when she turned to him with a smile. ‘We knew you were fire-watching last night, Mr Gower, and would probably have had little opportunity to get yourself breakfast,' she said. ‘So Mrs Hibbert has made you some toast and marg and a mug of coffee; they're in the office, if you'd like to go through.' Mr Gower was so taken aback that he was unable to say a word, but simply stared at her. He felt a great fool when Miss Preece's slim, dark eyebrows shot up. ‘What's the matter, Mr Gower? If you're thinking that Mrs Hibbert spoilt your toast, I believe one piece did go up in flames, but that's been thrown away. The two that are left are fine and the coffee will still be nice and hot.'

Mr Gower went over to the library assistant, just about to join Miss Preece at the counter. ‘Thank you, Mrs Hibbert; it's very good of you,' he said stiffly. He would have liked to add
but I had my breakfast an hour ago
, but knew this would be ungracious as well as untruthful. Instead he said, addressing Miss Preece: ‘I do trust you're not working away there on an empty stomach; I know you were fire-watching last night as well.'

Miss Preece opened her mouth to reply, but jolly Mrs Armitage got in first. ‘No, a' course she ain't workin' on an empty stomach, she's workin' on the bleedin' counter,' she said, giving a loud bellow of laughter which set the whole queue off into gales of merriment.

Mr Gower turned away and headed for the office. He told himself it was too early for readers in the Reference Library but the truth was he was famished; his stomach was fairly roaring for food and hot coffee. He sat down on the swivel chair behind the small desk, reached for the mug of coffee and took a cautious sip, and then a couple of big swallows. Then he started on the toast.

It had been kind, he decided, of Mrs Hibbert to make him some breakfast. He had resented her when she had first joined the staff, resented the fact that outside office hours she called Miss Preece Agatha, and the librarian referred to the older woman as Evelyn. Of course, Miss Preece was really Mrs Galera now, but she did not use her married name at work. He thought of Mrs Hibbert's crisply curling grey hair, her neat figure, and her rather sweet smile, and decided that she was a decent little
thing. He wanted to tell her to call him Cyril, which would be one in the eye for Miss Preece who had never used his first name, even when invited to do so.

Finishing the toast down to the last crumb and draining the coffee, Mr Gower made up his mind to have rather more courage in future in his dealings with his new colleague. There was a play coming on at the Empire Theatre in two or three weeks' time which he wanted to see. He would invite Mrs Hibbert to an evening performance, then buy her dinner at somewhere really expensive, possibly the Adelphi; he had heard that the food there was still extremely good, despite wartime rationing and shortages. After all, she could only refuse.

Hetty, Sally and Alice were packing, because the decision to take the
Shamrock
and her butty boat out of commission for ten days meant that all their personal possessions should be either stowed ashore or taken with them when later that day they headed for Liverpool and home. Hetty, cramming her sturdy boating clothes into a large hessian sack which had once held potatoes, thought that much though she loved the
Shamrock
and the
Clover
, she would be downright glad to live ashore for a whole, wonderful ten days.