‘We’re certainly at war with them, Agnes,’ Sally answered her briskly, ‘but as for them bombing us, well, I dare say the RAF will have something to say about that.’ Her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep with being on nights. Thank goodness she started back on days tomorrow. There was nothing like night duty to drain a person of energy. Yes, it was definitely lack of sleep that was making her eyes sting and her throat ache, nothing else, and certainly not the thought of three people in Liverpool who now mattered as little to her as she obviously did to them.
It was a sombre group of women that sat down to the Sunday dinner Olive dished up later than its normal time of one o’clock, thanks to everything that had been going on.
Afterwards, whilst Tilly and Agnes washed up and Dulcie perched on the edge of the kitchen table watching them, Sally and Olive went into the garden so that Sally could discuss with Olive her plans for starting up a vegetable garden.
‘Huh, growing veggies, is it?’ Nancy from next door demanded, popping her head over the fence, obviously having heard them talking. ‘My Arthur thinks it’s a daft idea trying to grow stuff when we’ve got Covent Garden so close by. He reckons that the Government’s got itself a load of seeds it wants to get rid of.’ She sniffed disparagingly as she spoke, causing Olive to suppress a small sigh.
Sally, though, shook her head and told her calmly, ‘I agree that you can’t get better veggies than those from Covent Garden, but the veggies have got to be got into the country and up to London, and that won’t be possible once this war gets going properly, so it makes sense for us all to do our bit and grow what we can for ourselves.’
‘Well, I suppose there is that,’ Nancy agreed grudgingly, after a brief pause, ‘although I hope you aren’t thinking of fattening a pig like some seem to be doing down on the allotments by the railway.’
Sally laughed. ‘I certainly can’t see us going that far, although I suppose we could think about having a few chickens.’
‘Chickens? Nasty dirty things. Bring rats, they do.’
‘Not if you keep their food out of the rats’ reach, and think of the lovely fresh eggs.’
Sally was dealing beautifully with Nancy, Olive recognised, treating her neighbour with the respect that was due to her seniority in years, but at the same time making it abundantly clear that she could and would stand her own ground. Nancy was inclined to be a bit of a bully and, like all bullies, if she sensed weakness or fear that only made her worse.
Changing tack, Nancy told Sally, ‘I saw you stop and talk to Sergeant Dawson earlier. I feel sorry for him, I really do, with that wife of his.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Mrs Dawson, Nancy,’ Olive protested. ‘I know she keeps herself to herself but that’s because of them losing their son. At least that’s what Sergeant Dawson hinted to me.’
‘Well, she won’t be the only one here with a son to mourn, now,’ Nancy predicted direly. ‘And have you seen how fast them houses further down that are let out to civil servants and the like have emptied? Cowards, they are, the lot them.’
‘Mrs Windle told me that the Government have evacuated lots of civil servants. I expect that’s why they’ve gone. They wouldn’t have had any choice. Not if they wanted to keep their jobs.’
‘Well, you would say that, you being the charitable sort. I’m not so easily taken in. Before you know where we are we’ll have them empty houses filled with refugees wot don’t know how to live amongst decent folk. It’s bad enough us having them Greeks or whatever they are living so close.’
‘They’re Greek Cypriots, Nancy,’ Olive explained patiently, ‘and they don’t do any harm. They keep themselves to themselves, you know that.’
Nancy, though, was plainly not in the mood to be appeased, her mood perhaps reflecting that of the whole country in its refusal to be appeased by Hitler’s offers and explanations of why he had invaded Poland, Olive thought.
‘How do we know them Greeks aren’t on Hitler’s side, that’s what I want to know. They could be spying for him,’ Nancy told Olive with the air of someone who was determined to have the last word.
‘Nancy can be a bit difficult, I’m afraid,’ Olive told Sally after her neighbour had returned to her own house, leaving them to continue their discussion about Sally’s vegetable bed. ‘She does tend to get a bit of a bee in her bonnet about things, so it’s best not to tell her too much.’
‘I know what you mean. We had a neighbour who was much the same. My mother always used to say that she loved finding fault with others. Sadly some people are like that.’
Such a sad look crossed Sally’s face that Olive instinctively reached out and patted her arm.
‘You must miss your own folk,’ was all she could think of to say, not wanting to pry.
‘Not really.’ Sally’s voice and expression changed and hardened. ‘My mother is dead, and . . . and my father remarried and has his own life now. I had the most happy childhood, thanks to my mother, but that’s in the past. Shall we have the veggie bed here, do you think? It’s a good spot with plenty of sunlight?’
Recognising that her lodger did not want to talk about her family, Olive nodded.
‘I noticed a decent-looking hardware shop a couple of streets away when I was walking back the other day,’ Sally continued, changing the subject. ‘I’ll call in there and get some string and some other bits and pieces so that we can mark the bed out.’
‘You might find there’s everything you need in my late father-in-law’s shed,’ Olive told her. ‘He was a keen gardener before he got too poorly to work. When we go back inside I’ll find the key and then you can have a look. Mind you, if you are going to call in at Hargreaves you might see if you can buy some extra torch batteries, if you don’t mind, and some more candles. I’ll give you the money.’
‘Good idea. We’ll all be needing them once the nights draw in and we’ve got to deal with the blackout.’
‘Yes. I’m going to sticky-tape the windows tomorrow now that it’s official and we’re at war. I got the tape a while back when the Government started sending out those leaflets about gas masks and evacuating the kiddies and all that.’
Whilst Olive chatted to Sally in the garden, in the kitchen the washing up had been finished and the dishes put away – by Tilly and Agnes. Dulcie, who had watched them without offering to help, was sitting on the table, swinging her long slim legs and eyeing them with a bored look.
‘I suppose your brother will go straight into service now, once he’s finished his army training?’ Tilly commented.
‘I suppose he will,’ Dulcie agreed. Agnes had removed the apron she’d been wearing whilst she helped with the washing up, and now what looked like several pieces of folded paper had fallen out of the pocket of her too large dress and onto the floor.
‘What’s this?’ Dulcie demanded, swiftly picking up the papers.
‘Oh. It’s what Ted gave me.’ Immediately Agnes reached out for the paper, her obvious anxiety making Dulcie taunt her, holding it up out of her reach.
‘Ted? So who’s he, then? A boyfriend? Been sending you love letters, has he?’
Dulcie was astonished that any male would show an interest in someone as drab and dull as Agnes, never mind write to her, as well as feeling just that little bit put out that Agnes, with her love letters, had stepped into territory that Dulcie considered to be more properly hers. It wasn’t that she wanted a boyfriend, especially not one who was keen on someone like Agnes, but it still aroused her competitive spirit and galled her a little that plain Agnes should be the first one of them in the house to have a male in tow.
Her face scarlet with