My Sweet Valentine (17 page)

One day, she hoped, she would be a mother herself, and when she was … When she was, would she be able to understand and accept a daughter-in-law who had deceived her own son?

George’s teasing, ‘Are you all right? Only you are looking very fierce’ had her smiling. Surely it was true that she did not have a family any more, even if that was by her own choice? She had cut herself off from her past. Her father belonged to that past.

SEVEN

‘Morning, Mrs Robbins.’

‘Morning, Barney,’ Olive responded with a warm smile pushing back the stray lock of hair that was being tousled by the boisterous March wind.

She’d seen Sergeant Dawson and Barney heading for Article Row as she turned out of it. She was on her way to meet up with Audrey Windle and some of the other members of their WVS group. They were going to help out at one of the refuge centres organised by the Government to provide assistance for people made homeless by the bombing.

She hadn’t planned to stop. Nancy’s warnings to her about her widowed status, and her own shameful thoughts – and feelings – about Sergeant Dawson had made her feel self-conscious about anyone, including Sergeant Dawson himself, thinking the wrong thing, but since Barney was virtually standing in front of her she had no choice.

No amount of washing and ironing of his clothes on the part of Mrs Dawson had managed to tidy him up completely, Olive thought ruefully. The collar of his shirt,
in contrast with the immaculate neatness of Sergeant Dawson’s shirt, was slightly crooked at one side, one sleeve of his Fair Isle pullover baggy and stretched, whilst his knees, below his grey short trousers, were distinctly grubby.

‘I was wondering,’ he said, eyeing her determinedly, ‘if you would mind if I was to go into your garden to see if there’s any shrapnel there?’

Olive smiled again. Collecting shrapnel had become something of a hobby and a contest between young boys in the aftermath of the bombing.

‘Of course not, Barney. In fact, I’m sure that Sally would be very pleased if you were to remove any shrapnel that might be there from our veggie bed.’

Barney’s answering brisk nod of his head was so very much in the manner of Sergeant Dawson, and so obviously copied from him, that it really touched Olive’s heart.

‘You go and tell Mrs Dawson that we’re on our way, will you, Barney?’ the sergeant instructed. ‘I want to have a few words with Mrs Robbins.’

‘He’s settled in really well,’ Olive commented when Barney nodded his head again and set off for number 1.

‘Yes, he has. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, though. We’ve had Nancy round every week since he came to us, and sometimes more than once a week, with some complaint or another. Her latest is that she found him in her garden. Told me that she thought he was looking to see what he could steal.’ The sergeant’s voice was grim with protective indignation. ‘I told her that he would only have been looking for shrapnel. Of course, he should have asked her first, but he’s a boy who hasn’t had anyone
in his life to show him how things should be done until now. The truth is that he pretty much ran wild and did as he pleased. I keep telling Mrs Dawson that we’re going to have to be a bit stricter with him, help him to understand that rules are there for a reason, but the minute my back’s turned she’s ignoring what we’ve agreed.’

‘I expect she just wants him to be happy,’ Olive responded. After all, wasn’t that what all parents wanted – for their children to be happy? Happy and safe. It might be nearly a month since Valentine’s Day but things were still not back to normal between her and Tilly. Not really. Tilly hadn’t said anything but there was a distance between them that hurt, and so far Tilly had rebuffed all her attempts to bridge it.

A sudden gust of March wind caught at Olive’s headscarf, whipping it away before she could grab hold of it. Sergeant Dawson, though, was faster, snatching it up as the wind whirled it around and handing it back to her.

‘I couldn’t find my Kirbigrips this morning,’ Olive told him, as she thanked him and took her scarf from him. ‘You can’t buy them any more because of the war.’

Their hands touched briefly, Olive immediately pulling her own hand back.

Archie Dawson’s hands were those of a man who worked hard with them: good strong hands. A true man’s hands, Olive recognised. The kind of hands that belonged to a man who would do all those things about the home that a woman couldn’t always do for herself, no matter how practically-minded and determined to be independent she might be. The kind of hands that belonged to a man who would always try to keep those he loved safe. Her Jim’s hands had gone so frail and
thin in the last weeks of his life. His sickness had taken all the strength from them so that he hadn’t even been able to hold a cup to his lips. Olive had had to do that for him.

‘Why I wanted to have a word with you was to tell you that we’ve got the stirrup pumps at last. The best thing would be for me to bring one round, show you how it works and then leave it with you, seeing as you’re the one who’s going to be in charge of our local fire-watching group,’ he told her.

‘Oh, yes …’

Of course Archie Dawson’s only reason for talking to her was to do with something official. And that was exactly what she herself wanted. What she wanted and the way things must be.

‘I could come round tomorrow evening after I come off duty, if that suits?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Olive agreed.

‘It’s very good what you’ve done sorting out a fire-watching group for Article Row, Olive.’

His unexpected praise pierced her guard. Before she could stop herself she heard herself telling him, ‘Nancy doesn’t think so. In fact, she disapproves. She told me that she didn’t think that Jim’s parents would have approved.’

‘That’s nonsense. For one thing, knowing how Jim’s ma felt about her house, I can’t see her not welcoming someone making an effort to make sure that Article Row is kept safe.’ He paused and then said, ‘Jim would have been proud of you, Olive.’

‘Would he?’ She wasn’t sure. Sometimes now Jim seemed so far away from her that she found it hard to
think what he would have felt had he been here now.

‘Of course he would. You’ve been a wonderful mother to your Tilly and— What is it?’ he asked when Olive made a small distressed sound and shook her head.

‘Nothing,’ she fibbed. ‘I mustn’t keep you any longer. Mrs Dawson will be wondering where you are.’

‘I doubt it. She complains that I’ve kept under her feet now that she’s got Barney to look after.’

‘Oh dear.’ Her immediate stab of sympathy took Olive’s thought away from her own worries. ‘Is she finding Barney a bit too much?’

‘No, she dotes on him. I’m the one who she’s finding a bit too much. She says that I’m too hard on the lad – you know, about having a set bedtime and that kind of thing.’

‘All children need rules,’ Olive agreed.

‘I think so, but Mrs Dawson doesn’t agree with me. In fact, I’m in the doghouse right now for telling her that being so soft on Barney won’t do him any good in the long run. She’s afraid, you see, that he won’t want to stay, and she’s taken to him that much that she can’t bear the thought of him going.’

‘I’m sure things will work out,’ Olive offered.

The sergeant gave her another rueful look but made no comment other than to say, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening. About seven?’

Holding on to her headscarf, Olive nodded before they went their separate ways.

EIGHT

‘Drew, please let me come with you when you meet up with this man who’s promised to talk to you about this gang of looters he’s involved with,’ Tilly coaxed as she snuggled up next to Drew in the fuggy beer-and-cigarette-scented warmth of their favourite Fleet Street pub, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

‘Tilly, you know I can’t. It might not be safe. Your mother would never forgive me if anything happened to you, and I’d never forgive myself.’

‘What about if something happened to you? I’m tired of having to do what my mother says all the time, Drew. I hate being eighteen. Why can’t I be twenty or, even better, twenty-one, and then I could please myself what I do? You said that I could be involved in finding out more about these looting gangs,’ she reminded him.

‘And you can, but not tomorrow afternoon, Tilly. Look, I’ll make it up to you, I promise. We’re going dancing at the Café de Paris in the West End tomorrow night, remember, with Dulcie and Wilder.’

The newly refurbished nightclub had recently reopened and was very popular with the smart set. Dulcie had
insisted on Wilder taking her there to make up for not being able to take her out on Valentine’s Day. The famous ‘Snakehips’ Johnson was to be the band leader for the evening. Once she would have been thrilled at the thought of such a treat, Tilly acknowledged, but not now.

‘Dancing? Who cares about that? I want to be with you when you talk to this looter, Drew. We’re a pair, you said. I want to share what you’re doing. I don’t want to be pushed to one side and kept safe.’

‘You don’t want to go dancing? Is this the Tilly who told me that she wanted to go to the Hammersmith Palais so much that she fibbed to her mother?’ Drew teased.

Tilly wasn’t so easily placated, though. ‘I was just a silly girl then. I’ve grown up now … since I met you. I just want to be with you, Drew,’ she repeated. ‘I want to share in what you’re doing.’

‘Sweetheart, don’t look at me like that,’ Drew protested, reaching for her hand. ‘You know what I’ve promised your mother.’

‘I know that no matter what we promise her, she prefers to believe Nancy than me,’ Tilly objected angrily. ‘She’s proved that. She might say that she accepts that Nancy was wrong and that she’s sorry she doubted me. I think she wants to doubt me so that she’s got an excuse not to let us get married now, like I want to do. She just doesn’t understand. She doesn’t
want
to understand.’

Drew pulled her closer. He knew how upset Tilly still was about the quarrel she had had with her mother over their Valentine’s Day call at the Simpsons’. He blamed himself for Nancy’s mischief-making and had said so to Tilly’s mother, who had readily accepted his explanation and even apologised to him for doubting them, but that
hadn’t been enough for Tilly. Unusually for her she had refused to forgive her mother. Drew had tried gently to persuade her to think again. He knew how much she loved her mother and how much this misunderstanding between them must secretly be hurting her, but Tilly had proved unexpectedly determined not to relent. The reason for that, as Drew knew, was Tilly’s longing for them to be able to marry – and soon. It was a longing he shared, but he didn’t want to make the situation even worse by encouraging Tilly to continue her hostility towards her mother. Drew admired and liked Olive, and in the end he knew that what hurt Olive would hurt Tilly as well, even though right now she would refuse to accept that.

‘Sometimes I think that you’re more on my mother’s side than mine,’ Tilly complained. ‘It makes me wonder if you really do want to marry me, Drew, or—’

‘Of course I want to marry you. Of
course
I do. You must never think otherwise, Tilly. The only way I could ever stop wanting you to be my wife would be if you told me yourself that you didn’t want that. You must never ever doubt how I feel about you, Tilly. Please promise me that you won’t.’

Tilly’s anger and distress melted away as she heard the genuine emotion in his voice.

‘Very well,’ she agreed, ‘but you’ve got to admit that you do always seem to agree with Mum.’

‘I’m not really taking your mother’s side, Tilly, I just don’t want—’

‘Would you be as willing to understand if it was your mother who was doubting you and refusing to accept that you’re old enough to know your own mind?’ Tilly interrupted him.

The bleak, almost haunted look that suddenly shadowed his eyes suspended her voice, leaving her more concerned about Drew than she was about herself.

‘Drew, what is it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There must have been something to make you look like that,’ Tilly persisted.

Drew was still holding her hand, and now he began to play with her fingers, stroking them gently, a habit he had when he was thinking deeply about something.

‘Tilly, I don’t—’ he began.

Tightening her fingers comfortingly round his, Tilly interrupted to tell him lovingly, ‘You don’t want there to be upset between me and Mum, I know that, Drew, and so does she.’ Tilly’s voice sharpened, her focus so much on her own grievances that she failed to see the shadow in Drew’s eyes darkening still further before he banished it to listen to her. ‘That’s why she keeps asking you to give her your word about what we can and can’t do. And that’s not fair, it really isn’t. I’ve tried to explain to her how I feel. There are so many women who are alone now because they lost someone during the last war. I see it when I’m typing up records at the hospital of patients’ names and details, I’ve seen it on Article Row with the Misses Barker, and I see it with Mum as well. Now we’re in the middle of another war and if we were to lose one another, Drew, if I were to be the one to have to live on without you, then I know how much I’d need the comfort of my memories of you and our love. Mum’s denying me the opportunity to be happy now and to make those memories because she thinks that us being together properly would make it harder
for me. I don’t understand how she can say that. She had her own special time with Dad and she had me because of that.’ Tilly gripped Drew’s hand tightly, her voice blurred with anguish. ‘What she’s saying to me now makes me wonder if she would have preferred not to have had me, Drew.’

‘Tilly, you must never think that,’ Drew protested, anxious to comfort and reassure her. ‘Your mother loves you dearly, anyone can see that.’

‘Yes, she does, but does she secretly wish that she hadn’t had to love me? Does she secretly think that her life would have been easier without me? If she hadn’t married Dad, if she hadn’t had me, then perhaps she might have met and married someone else …’

‘Tilly, your mother would never think anything like that.’