However, this time around, Barbara thought now, the cat seemed to have been well and truly set amongst the pigeons.
‘Why don’t you get it all off your chest, Peggy? I’m sure you’ll feel better if you do,’ Barbara cajoled. She still had no idea precisely what it was that Bill had done, and she was keen to know more.
‘I feel a fool, Barbara, such a total fool. While I’ve been stuck up here, away from you and Ted, and far from home and all that I know, looking after our dear Holly and washing and feeding her, and bringing in some money working at June Blenkinsop’s, and trying to do the right thing by your two as well, and never suspecting a thing about what Bill might be up to, he’s clearly been living the life of Riley.’ Peggy’s sentences jumbled into one another, but she didn’t seem to care although Barbara wished she’d get to the point. Then Peggy sighed dramatically and took a sip of her tea, before adding with a sarcastic tinge to her words, ‘She’s called Maureen, and she was working in the NAAFI, he told me. And he’s been seeing her since November, although apparently he wanted to end it at Christmas, although somehow he never did. And now she’s having his baby, and only has three months to go.’
Peggy swallowed, making a strange swigging noise in her throat that caused her to pause what she was saying, and despondently she looked down at her cup and saucer once more. Barbara rubbed Peggy’s arm that was closest to her in sisterly support, expecting a fresh outburst of sobs.
The forthcoming baby would be the clincher that Bill had passed a point of no return as far as her sister was concerned, Barbara knew.
Peggy remained dry-eyed to her sister’s surprise, although her voice was quieter when she was able to continue, ‘Barbara, I’m ashamed to say I more or less told him to go to hell, and then I said to him that he’d never see Holly again.’
‘Of course that was what you said at this news, Peggy! Any woman would have told him that. I would have, make no mistake, and then probably gone a whole lot further as well.’
‘But who’s going to suffer, Barbara? Not Bill, as he’ll be back in MaureenFromTheNAAFI’s bed quicker than a rat can get up a drainpipe, I’ve no doubt, as he’s not the sort to stay on his own if he can help it, and I’m pretty certainly he’ll have found a way to sneak off camp to be with her whenever he can. She’s obviously keen on him, and so his nest is already feathered, even if it doesn’t feel like that to him just at the minute. And I’ll get over him – I’ll make sure of that as otherwise I’ll let his actions punish me every day and I refuse to do that. Obviously my heart feels shattered to smithereens, and I despise him for what he has done to me and Holly. But the thought we meant so little to him will help, and so I think if ever I waver I’ll remember how little he cared about us and so I’ll hold firm,’ said Peggy.
‘No, it’s little Holly who’ll pay the price, don’t you think?’ she went on. ‘The poor little mite is going to grow up knowing that while many brave and honest men will die in this war, a louse like her father is very probably going to come through it unscathed and end up living with some other family that he’ll have had after her, and with him completely forgetting that he already has a daughter. I’m old-fashioned as I do think a child needs both parents, but it’s not going to be the case for Holly as he’s a canker that needs to be removed from our lives, and so the poor dear thing will never know what it’s like to be loved and cherished by her very own father. That breaks my heart more than anything Bill Delbert could ever do to me, I’ll tell you that for nothing, Barbara.’
Now the tears arrived, and in torrents.
Her sister shuffled a little further up the bed and put both her arms around Peggy, who leant her head down and sobbed so violently against her that Barbara felt the bounce of her sister’s head against her breastbone. ‘It’s not fair, Peggy, you’re quite right. It’s not fair. But you will be able to give Holly enough love for two parents, I know you will, and with you by her side she couldn’t ask for better,’ Barbara said as reassuringly as she could. ‘And Ted and I, and Connie and Jessie, will never be far away, you know.’
After a while the sisters drew apart to stare dolefully at one another, and then in perfect unison they turned to look over at the old crib holding the peacefully sleeping baby girl who looked as if the only care in the world that she had right at that minute was whether to nap with her white knitted bootees on or off.
Milburn had a distinctly put-upon expression on her long face by the time Roger had been fully tutored by Ted in the proper way of putting her harness on and then how to connect the trap to the harness.
The children tried to help Roger by exuberantly calling out instructions (many right, but some unintentionally wrong), but this only further confused him, especially when Mabel tried to say what she thought he should do too, with the result that he kept getting in a pickle, and inevitably would do the various leather straps up either too loosely, too tightly, or in the wrong way. And once Roger had finally got the harness on, only a bit askew, he then had difficulty in backing Milburn into the trap’s traces as he kept walking her backwards as if around a corner rather than keeping her moving in a straight line.
But Ted was very patient, as was Milburn, and suddenly the penny dropped, much to everyone’s delight, and Milburn wrinkled her velvety nostrils with what looked like relief.
Understandably, the children had started to become bored while Roger fiddled about and so they had started to do things like trying to push each other in the back of the knees, so that – if the timing were right – the unlucky recipient would be plunged forward and, if the timing was perfect, right down to the ground. As the boys were wearing short trousers and Connie a cotton summer dress Gracie had adapted for her from one of her own, it was likely that there’d be an array of bruises on the back of their legs that the children would be able to compare next morning.
‘Oi! Watch it!’ Ted had to be firm that that sort of behaviour was never to go on around Milburn, as it was the sort of thing that could lead to the pony getting unintentionally spooked and then somebody ending up hurt, he explained.
‘We didn’t mean anything,’ said Jessie.
‘I know, son, I know,’ Ted replied, ‘but none of you are used to big animals an’ yet yer ’ave to do their thinking for ‘em.’
Connie and Jessie looked at their friends with frowns, each twin seeming to forget that they had been happy to try to sneak up behind their pals to do likewise only a mere matter of moments ago. But their unhappy expressions reminded the others that their father hadn’t been in Harrogate long, and already he was having to lay down the law, which risked spoiling a nice day, and so for a little while all the children felt suitably chastened.
‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’ Connie sounded so contrite and in fact her saying she regretted anything was so out of the ordinary that Aiden immediately apologised too and then went and stood by Connie to show solidarity with her.
On the final run-through Roger managed to do it all very adequately with – best of all – no reminders from any of those watching him. And so it was then that with a smile, he stepped well away from Milburn to take a theatrically low bow, with one hand behind his back and the other swooping extravagantly towards the ground as he made a flurry of quickly delivered