‘What makes you think he’d tell me?’ Even though she and Archie had become very friendly of late, he still had to remain professional and not tell anybody of the things he knew or heard.
‘Well,’ said Nancy, ‘he must be privy to important information regarding the neighbourhood. Is there anything that we should know about?’ Nancy’s steel Dinkie curlers, miraculously saved from salvage, were rattling under the turbaned headscarf she had taken to wearing, albeit with a coloured-glass brooch at the side, since Princess Elizabeth had been pictured wearing one.
‘All I can say,’ Olive said with all the patience she could muster, ‘is that if he is in the know about what is going on he doesn’t share it with me – and that’s as it should be.’ She had heard enough from Nancy now and, turning, she went to open her immaculately polished front door.
‘So there’s nothing we should know about then?’ Nancy asked. There was a double meaning to the question; Olive knew she wondered if there was anything ‘going on’ between her and Archie.
‘Oh, there is one thing,’ Olive said in a low voice, looking around to make sure there was nobody to overhear. Leaning towards Nancy she whispered, ‘Archie did tell me – in the strictest confidence, of course …’
‘Of course!’ Eagerly moving her forefinger across tightly closed, thin lips, Nancy moved forward so she could capture every precious word.
‘He told me that Mrs Wetherill’s cat got stuck in a sewer pipe and she didn’t miss it for two whole days.’
‘Oh, Olive, you are a one!’ Nancy, colouring now, laughed, and Olive was glad she hadn’t taken offence at being so blatantly duped. Maybe when she had time to think about it, though …
‘Oh, I meant to tell you – about Sunday,’ Olive stopped at the front door. ‘We’ve decided to have a little get-together to celebrate Tilly’s birthday. You can come if you like,’ Olive said kindly.
‘Well, it’s as much your day as hers,’ Nancy said generously. ‘You did all the hard work. You can celebrate even if Tilly’s not here.’
Olive smiled, and without another word she hurried indoors and quietly closed the front door, knowing she would never tell Nancy the things she and Archie discussed in private.
‘David, what would you say if I said we are going to have another child?’ Dulcie, lying next to her husband in their double bed, had never broached the delicate subject of sex before. Their lovemaking had consisted of passionate kisses and they were both satisfied with that – or so David thought. He turned his head towards her, his relaxed body suddenly becoming tense; he knew that this would happen one day – or night, as the case may be – and he thought he was prepared for the time his wife would want more than passionate kisses.
‘Do you think I should go and see our man in Harley Street, Dulcie?’ David asked tentatively. He didn’t want to rush her, knowing she had been quite traumatised by the circumstances in which Hope had been conceived in an air-raid shelter; however, they had been married for almost a year now and they still had not consummated their marriage even though they desperately loved each other.
‘Oh, no, David, I didn’t mean …’ Dulcie’s words tripped over each other in her eagerness to put David’s mind at rest. ‘I wasn’t saying that I should have another baby … No, not that!’ She realised now that she should have mentioned it at the breakfast table or while they were eating dinner, not now, when they were in a vulnerable position.
‘Well, forgive me, darling,’ David said. Leaning his elbow on the pillow and resting his head nonchalantly in the palm of his upturned hand he said, ‘I haven’t got a clue what you mean.’
David was even more handsome now, looking down into her eyes, and Dulcie wished she was able to forget her time during the air raid with the American airman … but she couldn’t. David had never insisted on his conjugal rights – he was the most sensitive man in the world – and she knew that one day he would want to be the husband he thought she deserved. ‘I wasn’t saying that we should …’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. ‘It was Edith!’
‘Edith?’ David looked puzzled. ‘What about Edith?’
‘She asked if I would look after little Anthony while she went to work.’
‘We’ve taken care of him since he was born; she hardly knows the little chap, and he thinks she is his aunt; he doesn’t know her as his mother.’ David’s puzzlement was obvious in his sigh ‘… I thought you meant … Oh, never mind all of that …’
You thought I meant to have a child of our own, Dulcie thought as a nip of disappointment bit into her heart. She breathed a sigh of relief that the misunderstanding had not led to anything ‘awkward’, knowing David had been the epitome of masculinity when he was married to Lydia, who had cheated on him and was interested only in his title.
But Dulcie knew she would have to put that to the back of her mind now. Something important had happened today and she had to discuss it with her husband now otherwise she would not be able to sleep.
‘You know Edith came to see me today?’ Dulcie’s voice held a tentative note and David, leaning on his elbow looking down at her so adoringly, nodded.
‘She came to tell me that she has been offered another job.’
‘Oh, yes?’ David offered. ‘Am I not going to like this, Dulcie?’ But his ghost of a smile encouraged her to continue.
‘The job is abroad, with ENSA …’
‘How long for?’ David asked, nonplussed.
Dulcie shrugged; he would feel her sister’s desertion of her son keenly, knowing he could not father a son of his own; he could not understand Edith’s selfishness as Dulcie did.
However, as the hands of the clock slowly revolved and she lay awake listening to the steady breathing of her magnificent husband, Dulcie realised that he had given her far more than she had ever given him, and for that she felt humbled. It wasn’t a feeling she was comfortable with, though, and she wondered if the time had come to give him what he wanted most in all the world – a son of his own. First thing tomorrow, she was going to see her sister and put it to her that Anthony would be much better off with her and David. She was going to ask Edith to give her son up for adoption.
And as the new day dawned, David listened to his wife’s steady breathing. He and Dulcie had everything they could possibly dream of – except the loving intimacy that every married couple enjoyed and took for granted. He loved Dulcie with all of his heart, and he had done since the moment he saw her standing behind the perfume counter of Selfridges department store. With each day that passed since their wedding, he had showered her with everything he thought a woman could want, except the one loving intimate thing he couldn’t give. And he so badly wanted to show her just how much he loved her. As he watched her seemingly sleeping so peacefully with not a care in the world David vowed that he would go and see the consultant that day. Surely, something could be done.
The house was unusually quiet now that all the girls had gone. Olive wandered through the silent hallway towards the kitchen. The mantel clock sounded louder than usual. She had hardly noticed it before as there was always somebody coming or going, and the constant chatter made the soft tick-tick-tick almost imperceptible. Now Olive wasn’t sure if she liked the sound of the unrelenting passing of time.
She wasn’t given to bouts of melancholy usually, but she was becoming more worried about her family and friends now that she had time on her hands and had promised herself she would find more useful things to occupy her time. She had volunteered for more hours at the Red Cross shop, and she and Audrey Windle, the vicar’s wife, were also teaching less domesticated young women the joys of making do and mending in the church hall every Thursday afternoon.