‘Hadn’t you better open Charles’s letter, Edwin? There might be something he needs to sign, and if there is, Bella can go into Liverpool and take it to him. I do wish the hospital would say when he can come home. Poor brave boy. Bella, go and fetch the letter for your father.’
It was easier to comply than to argue, Bella decided, retrieving the envelope and handing it over to her father with an angry swish of the skirt of her cotton dress, thinking to herself: Poor brave boy nothing.
‘I’m so glad that Charles will soon be out of the army. He should never have gone in,’ Vi told Edwin, as she tried to smooth her dress over the curve of her hip. Thank goodness it was May with the summer ahead of them, during which she could try to lose a few pounds. Presenting a smart appearance to the world was important to Vi. Not that a little extra weight would have mattered if she’d been able to buy herself some new clothes, but with Lewis’s bombed there was now a shortage of shops where one could buy smart clothes. Vi certainly didn’t intend to go shopping somewhere like Bon Marche, Liverpool’s more price-conscious and less stylish department store.
‘Well, he did and according to this letter he’s going to have to stay in,’ Edwin announced, causing Vi to gasp and Bella to look at him.
‘But that’s not possible,’ Vi protested, her face flushing with anger. ‘You must have read it wrong, Edwin. He can’t possibly stay in the army. He’s getting married.’
Edwin shrugged, handing the letter over to Vi, saying curtly, ‘Here then, read it for yourself.’
Bella was surprised that her father wasn’t making more of a fuss. It wasn’t like him to take bad news so calmly.
‘You’ll have to do something, Edwin,’ Vi told him when she had read the letter.
‘Like what?’ he demanded testily.
‘Well, surely there’s something you can do,’ Vi insisted. ‘After all, you can’t possibly continue to manage with only that dreadful young woman to help you.’
‘Well, it looks like I’m going to have to, doesn’t it?’ Edwin responded.
‘But, Edwin …’
‘Don’t start, Vi,’ he warned her sharply. ‘I’ve got more than enough to worry about without you carrying on.’
‘But what will Daphne’s parents say? And poor Daphne too – she’s expecting to move up here with her new husband and how can she do that if the army won’t release him?’
‘Well, she’ll just have to lump it or leave it, won’t she?’ said Edwin unsympathetically, opening the kitchen door and disappearing into the hall.
Bella looked at her mother as they heard him going up the stairs.
‘I really don’t know what gets into your father at times,’ Vi complained. ‘I know he’s busy, but you’d think that would make him realise how important it is that he does something about getting Charles out of the army as quickly as possible.’
Vi’s pursed lips and flushed face warned Bella that there was likely to be a row when her father came back downstairs. She didn’t want to be dragged into it, not when Charlie getting out of the army and coming home with his new bride meant that she had to give up her house.
‘Look, Mother,’ she told Vi firmly, ‘I’d better go. We’re going to be inundated with requests to take in more children with all this bombing. I’ve already requisitioned extra supplies and I want to get back to the school and see if they’ve arrived.’
‘Your father is going to have to do something to get Charles out of the army. He’s getting married,’ Vi repeated, plainly still too concerned about the bad news in the letter to pay attention to what Bella was saying.
‘Being in the army doesn’t prevent him getting married,’ Bella pointed out, ‘and there’s nothing to stop Daphne staying where she is with her parents, seeing as Charlie is based closer to them than he is to Wallasey. It’s what plenty of newly marrieds are having to do, after all.’
‘I might have expected you to say something like that,’ said Vi crossly, ‘but I wouldn’t go counting any chickens if I were you, Bella. I’m sure your father will be able to sort something out. It means so much to him to have Charles home and working with him. He’s been looking forward to them working together as father and son ever such a lot. He’ll be dreadfully upset.’
Her father hadn’t looked particularly upset to her, Bella reflected, as she kissed her mother on the cheek, and then paused to ask her, ‘You won’t forget to find out if Auntie Jean’s all right, will you?’
The look of affronted astonishment her mother gave her was well-deserved, Bella admitted, as she stepped out of the back door and into the May sunshine. After all, she wasn’t close to her aunt and uncle and their family – not even to Grace, who was a similar age to herself – and in fact rarely gave them any thought.
A pall of grey across the sky to the south obscured the horizon, and in the air there was a smell that reminded Bella of the scent of the morning after Bonfire Night, only this was much stronger.
She wrinkled her nose. There’d been civil defence workers coming into the newly created rest centre this morning telling tales of bomb blasts that left people covered from head to foot in soot from collapsed chimneys, and Bella had seen for herself the now dispossessed-looking, disgustingly dirty and down at heel. She looked at her own immaculately clean summer frock and gave a small fastidious shudder. She simply didn’t know how she could possibly cope without her lovely clean bathroom and her freshly laundered clothes.
Bella’s comment about Jean had left Vi feeling thoroughly cross. Since when had Bella had any interest in the welfare of her auntie Jean and her family?
The freedoms that widowhood and having her own roof over her head, not to mention an allowance from her father, had given her were encouraging her daughter to get rather above herself, and all the more so since she’d got involved in this crèche, Vi decided. That was the trouble with this war, it was encouraging young women like Bella to do all manner of things they would not normally have been doing. Vi had heard other mothers of grown-up daughters saying exactly the same thing. The war was giving Bella’s generation far more freedom than Vi and her contemporaries had ever enjoyed. Too much freedom, in fact.
It was a great pity that Bella wasn’t more biddable and dutiful like dearest Daphne.
Edwin would have to do something about getting Charles out of the army.
Vi heard her husband coming down the stairs and went into the hall, but before she could say anything he told her irritably, ‘Not now, I haven’t got time.’
Vi opened her mouth to protest, but it was too late: Edwin was already opening the front door and on his way out. She certainly couldn’t say anything to him now when the neighbours might hear.
She’d have to go into Liverpool and tell Charles the bad news herself. Poor boy, he would be devastated.
Grace’s heart sank as the first person she saw when she came back on the ward after her break was her aunt, but it was too late for Grace to avoid her.
‘Poor Charles, I hope you’re looking after him properly, Grace. He has been through a very bad time, you know. Of course he’s been fearfully brave, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t recommended for a medal of some sort. He certainly deserves one.’
He certainly did, Grace thought grimly. She could agree with her aunt on that point, but the medal she would like to pin on her cousin wouldn’t be for bravery. Oh, no, it would be for swinging the lead and flirting with any nurse gullible enough to be taken in by him.
‘He’s just had a terrible shock, you know. I’ve had to give him some dreadful news, but he’s borne it bravely.’
Grace