Octavia's War (18 page)

‘There's never a dull moment in this place,' Octavia said, when she and Maggie finally sat down in Maggie's room to eat their midday meal. The cook had kept it warm for them and warned them that they'd got to eat it to keep their strength up. ‘We can't have you going down with something too.'

Octavia laughed at that. ‘I've had every childhood disease you could mention,' she said. ‘I don't think you need have any fears on my account.'

‘Well, I hope you'll eat it all up just the same,' the cook said. ‘We've got to look after you.'

By the time Octavia cycled home that afternoon, the isolation ward was organised, their fourth invalid had been diagnosed beyond doubt and she was feeling so tired her back was aching.

‘Am I glad to be home!' she said, as she walked into the kitchen. ‘Is there any tea in that pot?'

There was, but for the moment Emmeline had her hands firmly over the tea cosy and an extremely disapproving expression on her face and, seeing it, Octavia realised that there was an atmosphere and that she'd walked straight into it. She glanced round the room quickly trying to work out what it was. The girls were out in the garden playing some game in a tent made out of an old sheet, Edie was looking anxious, but then she often did, Janet was standing beside the sink, with her head bent over the washing-up bowl, not looking up. Then it's something to do with Janet. Speak to her first. ‘Nice to see you again, Janet,' she said. ‘Was it a good holiday?'

But Janet just mumbled ‘Yes, mum' and went on looking at the washing-up bowl.

‘Janet's got some news for you,' Emmeline said, sternly. ‘Haven't you, Janet? She's just been telling us.'

‘I hope it's good news,' Octavia said. ‘We've all had enough bad news to last us a lifetime. Not that I can complain. I had a piece of very good news only this morning. One of my teachers came to tell me she was engaged to be married. Young Helen Staples, Em. The pretty blonde. Teaches English. I expect you've seen her too haven't you, Janet.'

‘Yes, mum,' Janet said. ‘But woan't that mean she'll be givin' you noatice, like? I mean to say, woan't you have to find another teacher?'

‘Yes, I shall,' Octavia said, ‘and I shall miss her, there's no denying that, but that's the way things are. It happens all the time. The great thing is she's found someone who loves her and she loves him and they're going to get married. That's what's important. I think it's splendid.'

Quick glance round the room to see what effect she was
having. Edie looking relieved, Em suspicious, Janet blushing a really pretty pink and stammering. ‘The thing is, Miss Smith…'

‘Let me guess,' Octavia said, sure of herself now. ‘You're engaged too. Am I right?'

‘Well, yes,' Janet admitted, ‘onny, you see, it'll mean me leavin' me woark.'

‘Pour me some tea,' Octavia said, ‘because I'm gasping and then come and sit down and tell me all about it. What's his name?'

‘Ted,' Janet said, as she poured the tea. ‘And he's in the Merchant Navy an' he's real lovely an' he wants for us to wed before his next trip. It'll be a bit of a scramble but I canna say no, can I? Not when there are all those U-boats, if you see what I mean.'

‘I do indeed. So when's the wedding?'

Her answer was rather a surprise. ‘Sat'day week. Me mam's arrangin' everythin'. All I got to do is turn up on the day. Or the night before if you'd be agreeable to it.'

She's pregnant, poor girl, Octavia thought. ‘Have you got your dress yet?' she asked.

‘No, mum, not yet. It wor all a bit of a rush, like. An' a' course there's coupons now.'

‘You could have mine if I'd still got it,' Edith offered. ‘Only of course I lost it in the bomb. But I tell you what, Dora had one almost the same. I bet she'd let you have it. Or borrow it anyway. It's only hanging in her wardrobe. Would you like me to ask her?'

The kindness was obviously unexpected and it was no surprise to Octavia that Janet began to cry. Edith was across the room in a second and had her arms round her shoulders to comfort her. ‘It's always the same,' she said. ‘Don't worry.
Brides always cry. I know I cried buckets.'

‘I don't remember you crying,' Emmeline protested.

‘No, 'course you don't,' Edith said, easily. ‘I did it in secret.' And she turned her attention back to Janet. ‘Now, what about a veil?'

Emmeline made a grimace at her cousin but she didn't say anything more until the two of them were on their own in the drawing room after supper. Then she spoke her mind forcefully.

‘That's a shot-gun wedding if ever I saw one,' she said, and her face was a study in disapproval.

‘Quite probably,' Octavia said. ‘Does it matter?'

‘Does it matter?' Emmeline echoed in disbelief. ‘Oh, Tavy, how can you say such things?'

‘Times are changing, Em,' Octavia said, leaning back in her armchair. ‘You can't expect young couples to stay chaste and wait, not these days, not when one or the other of them has got to go back to sea to face the U-boats or back to North Africa to face tanks, or off to a big city to face being bombed. There's too much risk around. I think it's a good thing that love can triumph even in the middle of the war. It encourages me.'

Emmeline shook her head. ‘There are times when I despair of you,' she said.

Octavia smiled at her. ‘Quite possibly. But we'll wish our Janet well, won't we, no matter what sort of wedding it is, and send her a wedding present.'

In fact, they did rather better than that. The next morning Janet put an invitation beside both their plates and said she knew it was a long way for them to travel but she'd be honoured, she really would, if they could come to her wedding. And as Emmeline's opinion had gentled somewhat
overnight and Octavia was delighted to be asked, they both agreed. It was a very pleasant moment but it provoked a lover's quarrel.

Tommy phoned that evening full of plans for another trip to the theatre. ‘I've got the tickets,' he said happily. ‘Table's booked. I thought we'd go to the same place as last time. It's all arranged. Two seats in the stalls, Saturday week. How's that for organisation?'

‘Not good,' Octavia told him.

‘Why not?'

‘I shall be in Gateshead.'

He was surprised. ‘Gateshead?' he said. ‘Whatever for?'

‘I'm going to a wedding.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake,' he said crossly. ‘Whose wedding? Can't you put it off?' He was very annoyed when she told him she most certainly could not and explained why.

‘What's the good of me getting everything organised,' he said, ‘if you're going off to some stupid wedding?'

‘It's no good you getting grumpy,' she said. ‘It's not a stupid wedding, and in any case, even if it were I should be attending it.'

‘Grumpy?' he said ‘Well I like that. I'm a bit annoyed, that's all. Well, jolly annoyed actually. Who wouldn't be? Those tickets are like gold dust.'

‘Then you should have checked with me before you booked them.'

‘And I suppose you've got something planned for this Saturday too.'

‘No. Why should I have?'

‘Don't ask me. How do I know what you're doing? You never tell me.'

That was so petty it made
her
cross. ‘You're being ridiculous,' she said and hung up on him.

It was two days before he rang again and then it was to tell her that he'd had the most extraordinary letter from Lizzie. ‘I don't know how to answer it,' he said. ‘I'll show you on Saturday before I take her to tea, if that's all right. I'd appreciate a bit of womanly advice.'

‘I shan't be home till five,' Octavia told him. ‘I've got a meeting with Mr Chivers. But you could ask Em. She's a great one for womanly advice.'

‘I'd rather it were you,' he said, and he sounded almost chastened. ‘Em's a darling and I'm sure she'd help if she could but it's your advice I want. Could we meet for lunch perhaps?'

So they met for lunch and he
was
chastened and not at all his ebullient self. He took the letter from the inside pocket of his jacket as soon as the first course was served and passed it across the table to her almost humbly. It was a touching letter.

Dearest Pa
, it said.

In a day or two I shall have finished my examinations and after that I shall break up, which means I shall have some time on my hands. I have been thinking about this a great deal and I've been wondering whether you would like me to come back to London and keep you company for a little while. It must be very lonely for you all on your own and I could look after you. I shan't be as good at it as Ma was but I would do my best.

Let me know what you think the next time you come down.

Your ever loving daughter,

Lizzie.

‘That's a very loving letter,' Octavia said, smiling at it. ‘She thinks you're lonely.'

‘Yes,' he agreed, ‘I can see that. But what on earth am I going to say to her? I can't say I'm not, can I?'

‘No, you can't.'

‘Then what shall I say? She's put me on the spot.'

‘I think you might have to let her come home and look after you. You'll hurt her feelings if you say no.'

‘But that will mean…'

‘Yes, I know, but I don't think we have any option. You could suggest she stays with her friends until the end of term and then comes home. That would give us a bit of leeway.'

It was a possible compromise but he didn't like it. ‘I
had
hoped we could take a holiday in the summer.'

She was touched by how tentative he was. ‘We still could,' she said, ‘if we play our cards right. See what she says.'

‘Yes,' he said, ‘I will. And thanks for the advice.' He gave her his old confident grin, as if he was going to tease her. ‘It wasn't a problem that could be taken to Em, you see, was it.'

Lizzie came straight back from tea with her father to tell Poppy that she'd been quite right. ‘He is lonely,' she confided. ‘He as good as said so. I'm going back to Wimbledon to look after him as soon as we break up. He said I was a dear girl. Wasn't that sweet.'

‘What will you have to do?' Poppy wanted to know. ‘I mean you can't cook, can you? Except beans on toast. How will you manage?'

‘Oh, we've got a cook/housekeeper to do all that,' Lizzie said. ‘It'll be my job to be there in the evenings to eat dinner and talk to him like Ma used to do. If he has a party I might have to play the hostess but I could do that. It's only a matter of standing around making the right noises and looking pretty. I've seen Ma do it plenty of times.'

‘But would you know what to say?' Poppy worried.

‘You don't have to say anything really,' Lizzie told her. ‘You just have to agree with whatever they're saying. It's a sort of game.'

‘Heavens!' Poppy said. ‘I wouldn't like to have to play it.'

‘So anyway,' Lizzie said. ‘It's all settled.'

It was unsettled three weeks later by two events that neither she nor her father could have foreseen.

Roehampton Secondary School was shrinking. There was no doubt about it. The number of first-formers had been slightly down last September but it hadn't been enough to concern them. Most of the girls who had opted to come to the school had been happy to be re-evacuated to Woking so they'd only lost about half a dozen, whose parents had decided they should stay where they were. But this year was a different matter. Now the new entrants had been living in their evacuated homes for nearly two years and many of them didn't want to be uprooted. They'd solved the problem by finding other London grammar schools that were nearer their billets and would take them until the war was over. In addition to that, many of Roehampton's present second- and third-formers had begun to drift back to London to be with their parents. There was no more bombing now, it was safe, and there was an emergency school not far from where they lived. It didn't operate the Dalton system but it was a grammar school and it would do until Roehampton Secondary School came back to London. Admittedly Octavia had picked up one or two London grammar school girls who lived locally and ought to have been going to other schools in other areas but it wasn't enough to run three first forms.

‘They should have thought of this when they planned the
evacuation in the first place,' Maggie said crossly. ‘If they'd sent our elementary schools into the same area as us there wouldn't have been such a muddle. They could have stayed in their billets and just changed schools.'

‘I think it was a big enough undertaking without that sort of forward planning,' Octavia said. ‘They got four million children out of London in three days don't forget.' But the drop in numbers was worrying because it would have an effect on staffing. She wasn't sure now, having seen next year's figures, whether she would be able to replace Helen Staples or whether they would be justified in keeping both their school houses. ‘I will talk to Mr Chivers and see what he says about it,' she promised Maggie. ‘Look on the bright side. At least there will be more room at our assemblies.' And when Maggie grimaced, she turned their conversation to other matters and asked how their invalids were.

Mr Chivers came down to Woking the next week. He arrived in a shower of rain and came dripping into the hall at Barricane House with a very wet umbrella.

‘Such weather, dear lady!' he said to Octavia. ‘But we mustn't grumble. These things are sent to try us.'

‘I've got some coffee ready for us,' Octavia told him. ‘You look as though you could do with it.'

‘That sounds splendid,' he said. ‘Then I will show you my plans.'

He was such an ally and, despite his rotund appearance, a man full of ideas. When the coffee had been drunk and enjoyed, he spread the plans of Barricane House across her desk and explained what he had in mind.

‘If we were to extend this kitchen,' he said, ‘with an archway here and more sinks and cookers, this could be a domestic science room, which would free the rooms you are currently
using in Woking School and mean that your domestic science staff wouldn't be so isolated there.'

It was a very good idea and she told him so at once. ‘That will please our Miss Fletcher,' she said. But she was thinking that Miss Fennimore and Mabel Ollerington would then be left all on their own in the Science labs at Woking school and although she knew they would never complain, something really would have to be done about it. Study rooms in Barricane perhaps. Could we run to that? It would save time for the girls and a lot of wandering about the town.

‘Now, as to your new English teacher,' Mr Chivers said. ‘The governors have asked me to tell you they are quite happy for you to advertise the post. You might be somewhat overstaffed for a year or two but we feel we must do all we can to keep the Dalton system running, and English is such an important subject.'

‘That will be a great relief to all of us,' she told him and it was no more than the truth. ‘Are you joining us for lunch?'

‘No, no, dear lady,' he said. ‘It would be a great pleasure but I have to be in County Hall this afternoon. Especially if we are to set this work in hand. The sooner it is started the better, as I'm sure you agree.'

So he took the train back to London and Octavia cycled to Downview to have lunch with her shower-damp pupils. They were all quite cheerful despite the rain but it made her yearn for a single school building where they could stay dry and warm all day. What a long time it had been since they left Roehampton. And yet here they all were, still cheerful and coping, still getting amazingly good examination results, still helping one another – and people were still falling in love and getting married, war or no war. And tomorrow is Wednesday.

It was also a sunny day and Emmeline was in a very good mood because the local greengrocers were full of plums and she was going to make a plum pie for their dinner that night.

‘It's about time we had a glut of
something,
' she said. ‘We've been on short commons for such a long time I wonder we're healthy. There are days when I don't know how to make ends meet. And that dried egg is disgusting. It might be all right in cakes and puddings, but it's no good them trying to tell us you can scramble the stuff. It's like eating rubber.' She had what Johnnie would call ‘a very dim view' of the Ministry of Food and took all their propaganda with heavy cynicism. But she'd certainly become a lot slimmer since the rationing began, which was no bad thing, and she was much quicker on her feet.

They'd had plums for school dinner that day, although Octavia certainly wasn't going to tell her that. I don't suppose a double dose of plums will do any of us any harm, she thought, and they're very tasty.

That was Lizzie Meriton's opinion too. As Octavia was cycling home to give Emmeline a hand with the evening meal, she was ambling along the canal path, eating yet more plums from a brown paper bag. She'd changed into her coolest clothes, sandals, an old thin skirt and her PE shirt, because it was too hot to wear anything else. Not that she'd had a great deal of choice since clothing went on the ration. Most of the time she simply wore whatever was clean and came to hand. But what did it matter what her clothes were like? Nobody was going to see her down there by the canal. The important thing was that school was over for the day and she was walking into town to meet her father
and
she had a pound of plums and could eat them all if she wanted to. They were very sweet and very juicy.
She had to pause from time to time to wipe the juice from her chin and she was getting more and more sticky. But sticky or not, she made a very pretty picture ambling along by the
sky-tinted
water with her long, fair hair dappled by sun and shade, and the short, thin, skirt clinging to her brown legs, but she was carelessly unaware of it, for she had other things on her mind.

It wouldn't be long now before she went back to Wimbledon and started looking after her father. In one way she was looking forward to it – it would be nice to have him all to herself for a few weeks and to be back in her own home – but in another way she was just a little bit worried. Despite the bravado she put on when she told Mary and Poppy what she was going to do, she wasn't actually as sure of herself as she sounded. At first, acting the hostess had sounded dashing and easy but, as the likelihood of being asked to do it drew closer, she was beginning to think that it might turn out to be difficult. Her father's guests might look down on her because she was only a schoolgirl, or they might think she was too poorly dressed. They all seemed to have such wonderful clothes and they wore them with style. Maybe I could find something of Ma's, she thought, and get Mrs Dunnaway to alter it for me. But then it might not be suitable or I might look odd in it, as if I was trying to be too grown up. Sighing, she reached into the paper bag for another mouthful of comfort.

Private Ben Hardy, of the 7
^th
tank brigade, who was home on leave for ten days and at something of a loose end, rounded the bend just as she lifted the plum to her mouth and was dazzled by the sight of her. In the few love-struck moments while his brain was still functioning he knew she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his life. Then he realised that he was walking straight towards her and that if he didn't watch out he would bump into her. He side-stepped just as
she looked up and tried to get out of his way and for several seconds they stepped and swerved to avoid one another, both moving in the same direction as though they were performing some complicated dance. Then he tried to lunge away from her just as she too was moving and they collided, flailing arm to far-too-solid shoulder. As she stumbled, the plums fell from the bag and rolled towards the canal.

The sight of good food going to waste was more than she could bear. ‘You clumsy oaf!' she shouted at him. ‘You great big silly stupid clumsy oaf! Look what you've done. Those are my plums!'

He was bewitched. Bereft of the power of speech but utterly bewitched. He fell to his khaki knees and began to scrabble about at the water's edge catching as many of the plums as he could and stashing them in his cap, wincing as yet another one plopped into the canal, while those lovely brown arms and those gorgeous legs flashed in and out of his line of vision. Finally, when the last plum had been caught, he sat back on his heels and offered her the capful. ‘I'm so sorry,' he said.

Her face was furious. ‘And so you should be,' she said, taking the cap and transferring her plums to the paper bag.

‘I caught most of them,' he said, but she was already walking away, those long legs striding, that long hair golden in the green.

There were three little girls in school frocks walking towards her along the tow path and, as he watched, she stopped and spoke to them. They were gazing at her in admiration, as well they might, and after a few minutes she offered them some of her plums, wiping them on her skirt before she handed them over. What luck! She must be a teacher or something. If he could find out the name of their school he could see her again.

He sat on a fallen tree trunk by the side of the path, hooked his cigarettes from the breast pocket of his tunic and lit one to
give himself a reason for loitering. Then when the girls drew up alongside him, eating their plums, he said good afternoon and remarked that it was a lovely day.

They agreed that it was.

He took a drag on the cigarette. ‘Those plums look good,' he said.

They agreed about that too.

‘Was that your teacher?' he asked. ‘The young lady who gave them to you.'

That provoked giggles. ‘Oh no,' the tallest girl said. ‘Our teachers aren't like that. They're all old. Really old. Out of the ark, some of them. That's Lizzie Meriton. She's a prefect.' And she spoke the words with awe.

‘She looks nice.'

‘She is,' the girl said. ‘Ever so nice. We're in her house.'

‘Come on, Iris,' the smallest girl said, looking a bit anxious, ‘or we shall be late for supper.'

‘Can't have that,' he said, smiling, and he stood up and walked away from them. Well, you've got her name, he told himself happily, and you know she's a prefect at a school where they wear blue checked frocks, so that must be either a private school or a grammar. They're not Woking Girls. I do know that. I'll bet they're evacuees. Those kids sounded like Londoners to me. I'll ask Aunt Min. She'll know which one it is. There can't be many. Then I'll buy her some more plums and give them to her when I see her again. There was no doubt in his mind that he would see her again. It was just a matter of a little detective work. And hadn't he always wanted to be a detective? Lizzie Meriton, he thought, savouring her name. You're the girl of my dreams.

At that moment, the girl of his dreams was sitting opposite her father in the respectable dining room of the Albion Hotel, with her grubby bag of plums on the white tablecloth in front of her – to the barely concealed annoyance of the waitresses – and a terrible scowl on her face. After working everything out, even down to what sort of dresses she ought to wear at his parties, and thinking of all the things she could talk to him about in the evenings, he'd come straight in to this dining room, sat himself down and told her he wasn't going to be in London at all during the summer. She was appalled.

‘I thought I was going to stay with you and look after you,' she said. ‘I thought it was all arranged.'

Tommy recognised that he'd told her badly. It had sounded perfectly reasonable while he was speaking but it seemed to have gone wrong somehow. ‘I'm sorry about that, little one,' he said in his most affectionate voice. ‘But that's the war for you. Can't be helped. Marching orders and all that sort of thing.'

Lizzie wasn't impressed by marching orders. ‘Well, I think it's ridiculous,' she said crossly. ‘They can't expect you to work all through the summer. Nobody does. Don't they have any consideration for you? Couldn't you do it some other time?'

‘No, I couldn't,' Tommy said. ‘It's an Anglo–American conference and it has to be now because that's what Mr Churchill wants.' Then he realised that he was being indiscreet and hastened to warn her not to talk about it. ‘It's hush-hush, so you mustn't say a word about it to anyone. Careless talk and all that sort of thing. I know it's not convenient but it could make a difference to the war.'

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, well then I must put up with it.'

‘That's my girl,' he said. ‘Now, what would you like for tea? Do you fancy some scones?'

Disappointment – and a surfeit of plums – had taken away her appetite. ‘I'm not hungry thanks,' she said. ‘I ought to be getting back. Thank you for coming down to see me.'