Wartime Sweethearts (25 page)

‘He’d send messages by carrier pigeon if he had the chance,’ somebody had remarked.

When Ruby Sweet phoned him from the red phone box in Oldland Common, he’d had to get involved. Mrs Sanderson, a local busybody, had answered the phone’s vibrant ring. Before informing Reg Grantley, she elicited every bit of information she could before Mary realised she was nothing to do with the post office and insisted she fetch the person who was.

‘There’s a Miss Sweet on the phone out there who insisted you speak to her.’

Reg eyed her warily. ‘Ask her to give you a message.’

‘Tried that,’ croaked Mrs Sanderson who seemed to have a permanent frog in her throat. ‘Said it ’ad to be you. It’s a message for Ada Perkins. I do know that much.’

Reg grumbled about being inconvenienced and why couldn’t Miss Sweet have sent a telegram via Coleford where they had a proper telegram boy with a motorbike.

‘Well, she ain’t done that,’ remarked Mrs Sanderson who couldn’t understand why he wasn’t curious. ‘I wonder what it’s about?’

Reg grumbled right up to the point he pulled open the phone box door, hesitating before plunging inside.

Firstly Mary asked him if he knew Ada Perkins and where she lived. He’d replied that of course he did. Ada had given his wife some ointment for use on his haemorrhoids, a fact for which he would be eternally grateful. He was a martyr to haemorrhoids. Ada Perkins. Foxglove Cottage. Hardly a cottage, he muttered pulling himself up short when it occurred to him that Mary might have heard him.

Mary made him repeat the message word for word.

‘Not too bloody far,’ he’d grumbled on putting the phone down, mainly because he was thinking of his bicycle saddle and the bumpy forest tracks; terrible for his haemorrhoids. Tonight he’d need a double dose of that cream his missus had got from Ada Perkins.

‘Bucketful at this bloody rate,’ he mumbled to himself.

Frances was delighted to receive the message telling her that she was expected home for Christmas. Mary would be catching the train north to Gloucester where she would change to the line that would take her down into the Forest of Dean to collect her. She would be spending Christmas with the family that had brought her up – her family – the only one she had really known.

She made her way to the smoke house, drawn by its smell, its warmth and its darkness. The door creaked high and low notes as she pushed it open. The smell of smoke greeted her, coupled with that of the meats and fish, slowly tanning to a warm shade of brown. It was quite dark, but she liked that. Being in the dark helped you think and she needed to think.

With thinking in mind, she made for the very darkest corner where she crouched down to sort out her thoughts. She’d often wondered what it might be like to be a twin and wondered if it would be like the way she was feeling now, two different mind sets, one wanting to go home, the other wanting to stay.

In a very short space of time, she’d got used to her new surroundings and new friends.

On top of that there was Ada. She was an intriguing character with her potions and medical advice and her abstract points of view and total disregard to authority, church and state.

‘Though I do like the royal family,’ she insisted, a fact which seemed at odds with her less-than-conservative nature. Ada would countenance no criticism of the King and Queen or the Duke of Windsor, the man who had given up his throne for a woman.

‘I blame her,’ she told Frances. ‘That woman who bewitched him. And don’t you think there ain’t no spells to capture a man’s heart, cos there are; old Ada knows them all!’

Frances loved all the talk of spells and potions. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Ada expressed contempt for Wallis Simpson, the woman who had snared a king, she could almost have believed that Ada had supplied the necessary love potion.

One of Frances’s school friends had referred to Ada as the Foxglove Witch. Frances had repeated it to Ada who had merely chomped on her pipe, winked and said, ‘P’raps I am.’

Frances was worried that she wouldn’t be allowed to return, perhaps Ada had grown tired of her. After all, as she’d said at the beginning, she’d done the service out of the goodness of her heart. She hadn’t had to. Like it or lump it, she’d said.

Ada noticed the mixed emotions flashing across the youngster’s face when she came in from the smoke house.

‘Cheer up. You’re going home.’

‘Can I come back here after Christmas?’

‘Of course you can.’

Frances suddenly thought of Charlie and her mood instantly brightened. ‘I expect Charlie will be there,’ she said wistfully.

Ada’s daughter had written to her, but Ada decided that for now she would say nothing, her view being that if Stan Sweet hadn’t told the child about Charlie being missing, then neither would she.

That first day back home, Frances ran all through the house, upstairs and downstairs, refusing to believe that Charlie wasn’t hiding there, that this nonsense about him being missing was just that: nonsense.

She also refused to be consoled by Mary or her twin, running to her uncle to ask him to confirm that it just wasn’t so.

‘He’s not dead. I prayed for him every night at Ada’s to stay safe even though she said prayer had never worked for her.’

‘And you were right to do so,’ said Stan, rubbing the coldness from his knees as he struggled to his feet. ‘And anyways, we’ve been told that he’s unaccounted for, not dead. So just you wait. He’ll be walking through that door before very long and he’ll laugh at us all being so scared about him.’

‘I shall pray again.’

‘Good idea. Tell you what, how about if you and me pop round and ’ave a word with my Sarah. I’ve already told her that Charlie is missing and we haven’t had a word, but nobody ’as said he’s not coming back. Missing they said and missing it is: a prayer in the churchyard over where the earthly remains of his mother, my Sarah, lies might do the trick. How about it?’

Since living with Ada Perkins, Frances had begun to have her doubts about prayer, but she nodded anyway.

Although it was mid-afternoon by the time they got there, the sky was leaden and hung heavily above the stark branches of leafless trees. The frost from the night before was still crisp and white on the short-cropped grass between the graves.

Hand in hand, Stan and his niece walked across the white grass, the frost crunching beneath their feet. They were still hand in hand when they came to the headstone where Sarah Sweet’s name was carved along with the date of her birth and her death. Below that it simply said, ‘Sarah Sweet, beloved wife of Stan Sweet. Sweethearts forever.’

Stan let go of his niece’s hand and took off his hat. He held it before him with both hands, his knuckles white with tension. He addressed the headstone. ‘Nearly Christmas, Sarah. Thought I might attend the midnight mass this year – all things considered.’

He wasn’t one for attending church that much, though he did enjoy the Christmas service, what with all the decorations and the welcoming interior exuding warmth in direct contrast to the cold outside. He intended keeping his vow to Sarah that this year he would attend. Despite his assurances to his niece, he wasn’t sure it would do much good, but he’d do anything to have Charlie safe and sound.

‘Sarah, I’ve got young Frances with me. She’s as worried about our Charlie as I am. I suggested she come here and we can tell you all about it. Seeing as you’re in heaven and closer to God at this moment than we are, perhaps you could pass on our deepest wish that our Charlie is all right. We don’t mind too much that he’s missing, but we do hope that he’s still alive. That is our prayer and no doubt, if you were still here with us, it would be your prayer too.’

Frances looked at him wide eyed when he uttered amen. He’d been talking to his wife as though she were really there. It had been more of a conversation than a prayer.

She looked round half expecting a glowing figure in white standing behind a tree, a bush or somebody else’s headstone. There was no one, just a sudden hush of wind in the treetops.

The next day the frost had hardened though by midday the sky had brightened with the promise of a thaw.

The last batch of bread was in the oven and Ruby was standing at the front window, the teapot clasped in both hands, her eyes staring out at the icy scene. She’d got over not winning the competition the moment she’d heard that Charlie’s ship had gone down. What was winning a competition compared to her brother’s life?

Just yesterday, she’d bumped into Gareth in the High Street and he’d asked her about Charlie.

‘There’s no news,’ she told him while side-stepping to get past.

‘I could take you to the pictures if you like. Might help you get over it.’

She stared at him, his facial features turning to fat, his neck beginning to bulge above his shirt collar and hair badly in need of a cut. She also noted the smell of alcohol on his breath. Everyone knew he was hitting the bottle; she wondered whether it was because of her. At one time she might have been flattered, but not now. Looking at him her eyes were finally open to his faults. She’d been an impressionable young girl. She wasn’t that any longer.

‘I’ll never get over it, Gareth. Not until he’s safe and sound, and a night at the pictures isn’t going to help – especially a night at the pictures with you!’

She strode off, head held high and a new lightness in her step. Gareth Stead was a part of her past but would never be a part of her future.

She thought about Charlie every day. Even now the scene before her eyes was blurred with tears. She wasn’t seeing the weather, her head filled with imagined scenarios of where Charlie might be, perhaps cast away on some desert island like Robinson Crusoe.

Goodness, she thought, pulling herself up short. You’re beginning to think like Frances.

Melvyn Chance, the postmaster, looked to be heading for their front door with a letter, maybe more than one letter, clutched in his right hand. He was striding quickly, head down almost as though he didn’t want to be recognised. Before the outbreak of war he had whistled his way to every door in the village, his uniform as neat as a new pin and his eyes shining with the missionary zeal of a man of vision. Since the outbreak of war he had told everyone who would listen that he had terminated his membership of the British fascists after becoming disillusioned with Sir Oswald’s close association with the chancellor of Nazi Germany.

Most people took his statement with a pinch of salt. Stan Sweet tended to spit blood just at the mention of the man’s name and it had been observed that Melvyn crossed the road to the other side if he happened to see Stan coming his way.

‘Dad. It looks like we’ve got post,’ called Ruby.

Her father came into the shop rosy-faced from the heat of the oven. Hope was in his eyes, but despite his rosy cheeks his face was more lined and thinner than it used to be.

‘Then let’s ’ave a cup of tea out back,’ said Stan. ‘I’m parched.’

The living room to the rear of the shop and the side of the baking room was always warm. Even in summer the heat of the bread oven kept it warm and a fire was only lit in the depths of winter.

‘We’ve got post,’ Ruby repeated to Mary who was sawing through a fresh loaf of bread still warm from the oven.

Mary left what she was doing and lit the gas beneath the kettle. Looking out for the postman and making a pot of tea on his arrival had become a ritual, hope overriding any antagonism they might feel towards him. So far they had hoped in vain so nobody dared to assume that today would be any different.

Mary heard the sound of letters being posted through the shop door.

‘I’ll get it.’

She was up and gone before Ruby had a chance to argue. Both envelopes were brown manila. The one that caught her eye and made her heart beat faster was the one marked War Office.

Mary stared at it, wanting to rip it open. Did it contain good news or bad? She swallowed the sickness she felt inside. Bad news didn’t always come by telegram nowadays, she told herself. Sometimes it came through the normal post, especially if somebody had become a prisoner of war.

She licked away the dryness from her bottom lip before composing herself and went back into the kitchen.

Stan had made himself comfortable in his favourite chair at the head of the table. On seeing the look on her face, he put his teacup back into its saucer.

‘Is it from Charlie?’

Mary shook her head as she handed him the two letters.

‘One’s from the War Office,’ she said quietly. It was the only one that really mattered. Fearing what it might contain, she hadn’t even bothered to check the other one, not even the addressee.

Her father’s reaction was much the same, setting the second envelope on the table, his attention fixed firmly on the first. He turned it round and round as though plucking up the courage to open it.

Mary sank into a chair beside her sister. They both looked at their father, their hearts in their mouths.

There was one empty chair at the table. Frances was up in bed still, pretending to be suffering from a cold. If the news was bad, then they would break it gently.

Please God don’t let it be bad
.

‘Go on,’ Mary said softly, touching her father’s arm.

At the touch of her hand, Stan Sweet stopped staring at the envelope. He cleared his throat, a prelude to tearing it open, yet he didn’t tear it. He did it carefully, sliding his butter knife along the top. Grasping the single sheet of paper between thumb and index finger, like tweezers, thought Mary, it was pulled out and opened up.

As he read it he let out a great gasp. There was no need to read the words. Joy lit up his face.

‘He’s alive! Our Charlie is alive!’

He passed the letter to the girls, got out his handkerchief and trumpeted into it. Tears squeezed out from the corners of his eyes.

After reading it, Mary slumped back into her chair, hiding her face, alternately laughing and crying with the sheer relief of it all.

Ruby read it at least four more times before her shoulders were shaking with sobs, great big tears running down her face and into her mouth.