‘You mean because she’s pretty and likes makeup and goes out dancing a lot?’
Olive could hear not just the questioning in Tilly’s voice, but also, more worrying, a hint of rebuke.
‘No, not because of those things,’ she defended herself. ‘After all, you are pretty and although young skin like yours doesn’t need anything more than a dash of lipstick and a brush of mascara on those lovely long eyelashes of yours, you too wear makeup and I dare say you would go out dancing a lot yourself if I let you. No, Tilly, it isn’t because of any of those things that I feel the way I do about Dulcie.’
‘What is it then?’
Moving closer to her daughter, Olive put her arm round her, smiling, filled with maternal love, when Tilly put her head on her shoulder just as she had done as a child.
‘It’s the way Dulcie speaks to Agnes, the way the things she says and does show that she doesn’t have the kind of . . . of consideration and compassion for others that I hope I have always encouraged you to have. There’s a . . . a selfishness about Dulcie that makes it hard for me to warm to her. Tilly, I know you find her exciting and glamorous – of course you do, and at your age I dare say I would have done as well – but think of this, sweetheart. Her own family live within walking distance of here and yet she’s chosen to turn her back on them.’
‘Because there isn’t enough room, and her sister borrows her clothes.’
Olive’s heart sank a little. Plainly Dulcie had had more of an effect on Tilly than she had realised if Tilly was already willing to take Dulcie’s side and defend her.
‘I do know what you mean though, Mum,’ Tilly acknowledged. ‘But don’t you think that Dulcie might be the way she is because people haven’t always been, well, kind and considerate to her?’
Hard on the heels of Olive’s jolt of surprise that Tilly could be so acutely perceptive in pointing out something she hadn’t yet recognised herself, Olive felt a surge of love and gratitude that she had been lucky enough to have such a special daughter.
‘I don’t know, Tilly, you might be right. We shall have to see,’ she answered.
‘Cigarette?’ Dulcie’s rescuer offered her, from the safety of the air-raid shelter, its dark interior illuminated by the lamps that had been lit by one of the three ARP wardens who had taken charge of the place. The lamps gave off a strong smell of paraffin, making Dulcie wrinkle her nose before she shook her head and started to turn away from her rescuer, but he refused to take her hint.
‘I’m Jim Andrews, Private Jim Andrews, 3rd Battalion The Rifles.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘I was supposed to be on leave but I reckon with this lot happening, we’ll be recalled before I’ve so much as got me feet back under me mother’s kitchen table, and be on our way to France.’
‘Regular soldier, are you then, son?’ an older man sitting on one of the narrow benches down the side of the shelter asked.
‘Joined up six months ago after I’d done me training,’ Jim confirmed.
He was looking at Dulcie as he spoke, and she suspected that if she gave him half a chance he’d end up asking her out, which wasn’t what she wanted at all. He looked the settling-down type, and Dulcie wasn’t interested in anything about settling down. To her relief, just as he opened his mouth to say something, the sound of the all clear reached their ears, causing a wave of relief to surge through the shelter. Then those inside gathered up their belongings and started queuing up to leave.
‘’Orrible place. You won’t get me going back in one. I’d as soon die in me own bed,’ one elderly woman was telling anyone who would listen as they started to file out past the ARP wardens, who were now trying to write down everyone’s names and addresses.
‘No point in giving him mine, seeing as I won’t be here much longer,’ Jim told Dulcie.
‘Me neither,’ she agreed, it being Dulcie’s nature not to want to oblige officialdom in any of its many forms.
‘You mean you’re going into uniform?’ Jim asked her as he stood back to allow her to step outside and then rejoined her, sticking firmly to her side.
‘No. I mean you’d never get me back in a place like that again even if you paid me,’ Dulcie informed him pithily. ‘It smelled to high heaven, and all them old women going on about the last war and us being gassed got on my nerves. Anyway I shan’t need to, seeing as we’ve got our own shelter in the garden. Thanks for looking out for me,’ she felt obliged to say, ‘but I’d better run, otherwise I’ll get what for, for missing dinner.’
‘I dare say you’ve already got a chap, a pretty girl like you,’ Jim was saying, but Dulcie pretended not to have heard him, deliberately turning away and plunging into the growing crowd thronging the pavement, and then hesitating. The siren going off like that would have given her mother a real fright. Perhaps she should take the bus back home just to check that everyone was all right, and to reassure them that she was too. Not that they’d care. Her mother would probably be too busy having palpitations worrying about ruddy Edith and her singing to even notice she was there. And besides, if there was to be another air-raid warning then she’d rather spend it in number 13’s Anderson shelter than in the public shelter her family would have to go in.
Turning on her heel, Dulcie headed for Article Row.
In the kitchen of number 13, Agnes was listening wide-eyed as Sally told them, ‘I saw the police sergeant who lives at number one on my way here.’
‘Sergeant Dawson,’ Olive and Tilly said together, Olive turning her attention from the potatoes she was putting into the hot roasting tin as she did so to look at Sally.
‘Yes, Sergeant Dawson,’ Sally confirmed. ‘He was standing by his gate when I walked past and he said that he’d heard that the sirens going off had just been a false alarm, that was all.’
‘A false alarm!’ Olive exclaimed. ‘Well, of all the things, nearly giving us a heart attack just for that. It’s just as well I dashed in here to turn the oven down. This piece of brisket wouldn’t have been worth eating otherwise. Is it twelve o’clock yet, only the Prime Minister’s announcement is bound to be on the news.’
‘Nearly, just a couple of minutes to go,’ Sally told her.
As Olive had guessed, Sally had sheltered at the hospital when the siren had gone off, thankful that because it was a Sunday no operations were scheduled, and no emergencies had come in. They’d had a busy enough night in the operating theatre with an appendix that had to be taken out, followed by a lad with a piece of glass from a broken bottle stuck in his leg, which had only just missed severing an artery, and another with a badly broken arm after a fight had broken out at a local pub.
‘It’s twelve now,’ Sally warned, as Olive slid the roasting tin back into the oven and closed the oven door, wiping her hands on her apron before slipping into her chair just in time to hear the wireless crackle and buzz as Tilly frantically adjusted the reception.
Then, after comment from the announcer, they could all hear the Prime Minister saying, ‘This country is now at war with Germany. We are ready.’
The sound of the kitchen door opening distracted them all, Dulcie coming in, saying crossly, ‘I’ve nearly ruined my best shoes and now I’ve just heard one of your neighbours saying that that ruddy air-raid warning was just a false alarm . . .’
‘Shush . . .’
‘The Prime Minister’s on.’
Dulcie glowered as both Olive and Sally spoke at once, demanding her silence. What was the point in