It was gone midnight according to the illuminated face of Tilly’s alarm clock, and she and Agnes should have been asleep, but instead they were lying in their separate beds in the darkness facing one another as they whispered excitedly about their promised shopping trip. Olive, having given in to maternal love, had agreed that they could make the longer journey to the Portobello Road Market.
The Portobello Market. Tilly hugged her excitement and delight to herself, enjoying the grown-up feeling it gave her that her mother had accepted her argument that travelling to it could be cost effective in the end, given that they were bound to have a wider choice of fabrics, and possibly at better prices.
Typically, Nancy next door had nearly brought an end to Tilly’s hopes, when the proposed shopping trip had been mentioned to her and she had sniffed in that disparaging way she had and said that you wouldn’t get her travelling all that way just to get a length of fabric, adding for good measure that she’d heard that half the stalls in Portobello Road sold things that had been acquired illegally. Tilly had held her breath whilst Nancy had been sounding off over the garden fence to her mother but, to her delight, Olive had merely nodded her head and then told her and Agnes, once Nancy had disappeared, that they might as well take a look along the Portobello Market, even if in the end they ended up buying something from Leather Lane.
Tilly knew exactly what kind of new dress she wanted: one that was properly grown up. The kind of dress that someone like Dulcie’s brother, Rick, would see a girl wearing and immediately want to ask her out. Quite what shape and colour that dress would be Tilly hadn’t made up her mind yet, she just knew that it had to be a magical, special kind of dress that would transform her from a girl into a young woman.
Not that she’d said anything about that to her mother. Instinctively Tilly knew that Olive might not agree with Tilly’s own plans for her new dress, and that a certain amount of coaxing and pleading might be required in order for her to get what she wanted. One thing Tilly did know, though, and that was that it would be far more exciting and much more fun looking for fabric for her dress at the Portobello Market than it would be in dull familiar Leather Lane. Thanks to Dulcie the Portobello Market had taken on an allure of glamour and excitement, the sort of place, in Tilly’s vivid imagination at least, where all sorts of enticingly new things might happen. Like finding the perfect fabric for THE dress. The one that she would come downstairs in and that Rick, who would just happen to be visiting number 13 to see his sister, would see her in. He would look up at her with the kind of bedazzled expression she had seen on the faces of heroes at the cinema. She would smile graciously at him whilst she finished descending the stairs, and then . . . Tilly’s heart gave a thump of mingled excitement and apprehension at the romantic possibilities of such a scenario (her mother would, of course, be at a WVS meeting and thus not there to witness the scene and possibly banish Tilly back to her room), which was so intense that she had to cover her heart with her hand to calm it down.
Agnes’s ecstatic whispered, ‘Oh, Tilly, I’m so happy I could burst,’ echoed Tilly’s own feelings so exactly that she reached across the narrow space between their beds to find Agnes’s hand and squeeze it.
‘Me too.’
Agnes expelled a deep sigh of delight. ‘Your mum is that kind, Tilly. I was that worried and upset when Matron first told me that I’d got to leave the orphanage, but now, well, there’s no place I’d rather live than here at number thirteen.’
She could hardly believe it. She was going to have something new to wear. Something of her very own that no one else had ever worn. The very thought made Agnes tremble with humble delight. She’d never had anything that was her very own, excepting her underwear. She dare not even imagine how she might look. Not as nice as Tilly, who was so much prettier – that wouldn’t be possible – but if she could just look, well, not like an orphan, but like an ordinary girl who came from a proper home. Not that she wasn’t grateful to the orphanage, of course. She was. Matron had been ever so good to her, she knew that, but to have her own outfit . . . She scarcely dared to believe that it was really going to happen.
Chapter Nine
Early the next morning, before it got too busy and all the best bargains were gone, Olive and a very excited Tilly and Agnes set off for Portobello Road.
They’d decided to take the tube from Chancery Lane tube station to Nothing Hill Gate and then to walk the rest of the way. Agnes, of course, since she worked for London Transport, would be able to travel free.
‘Will we get to see your friend Ted?’ Tilly asked Agnes.
‘No, ’cos he’s on nights,’ Olive heard Agnes answering, as she increased her walking pace to keep up with the girls, who were so excited that they were almost running. Their excitement was infectious, Olive admitted, and she was beginning to feel quite excited herself. Treats like this one had been rare occurrences in her life as a widow who was virtually financially dependent on her in-laws. She and Tilly had never gone without anything, but she’d certainly never felt able to splash out on things, not even for Tilly, which made today’s outing all the more special and something to be enjoyed, she told herself, smiling at Tilly as her daughter linked arms with her on one side and Agnes on the other.
‘He told me on Thursday when we had a cup of tea together that he’s really proud of how well I’ve learned all the stations,’ Agnes continued.
She spoke a great deal about the young man who had been helping her, and although Agnes’s emotional and sexual welfare were not strictly speaking her responsibility, Olive couldn’t help feeling a maternal twinge of concern as she listened. Agnes was virtually the same age as Tilly, and she was naïve. It wasn’t her business to interfere, of course, but since Agnes had no one to stand as a caring parent for her, and since Olive felt morally obliged to keep a protective eye on her young lodger, listening to the two girls chatting she decided that she needed – discreetly, of course – to find out a bit more about this young man.
‘Since he’s been so kind and helpful to you, Agnes,’ she announced. ‘you’ll have to ask him to come and have his tea with us one evening, as a thank you.’
Immediately Agnes looked a bit uncertain. ‘I don’t think I could do that. You see, Ted’s mum likes him to go straight home from work when he’s on days so that he can give her a hand with his younger sisters, with her being widowed.’
Olive could only accept what Agnes told her, though it raised her concern. It sounded plausible enough but who knew if this Ted was telling the truth, and he wasn’t just leading Agnes up the garden path, her being such an innocent sort.
They’d almost reached the end of Chancery Lane. Olive pulled her warm winter coat firmly around herself as a sharp wind buffeted them when they turned onto Holborn, heading for Chancery Lane tube station.
It was definitely time that Tilly had something new, she acknowledged, as she looked at the hem of her daughter’s coat, which barely touched her knees. Tilly must have grown at least a couple of inches since she had bought her the dark green coat with its velvet collar in an end-of-season sale at a shop on Oxford Street.
The