Now she was familiar with such terms as double declutching, knew what the ‘bite’ point for changing gear was, could turn corners neatly and even reverse, and during their weekly WVS meetings she and Anne Morrison sat together exchanging tips and horror stories about their lessons, both ruefully admitting to each other how nervous they had been about that first lesson and how thrilled they were now that they were actually driving.
Olive hadn’t forgotten Nancy’s warning to her, but even though her response to it had led to a certain coolness between them on Nancy’s side, Olive didn’t regret her decision or her defiance. Learning to drive made her feel that she really would be able to do something useful, should the need arise. Times were changing and her sex was changing with it: today’s women, with their men going off to war, were having to take charge of their own lives, make their own decisions, and take on the jobs that now needed doing. Today’s women weren’t shrinking violets who never stepped outside their front door without needing to ask a man’s permission, and she certainly wasn’t going to allow Nancy to tell her what she could and could not do.
‘You can put your mind at ease with regard to young Ted, by the way,’ Sergeant Dawson broke the silence between them after they had reached the far end of Article Row and Olive had turned left into its neighbour, Merton Road, which led eventually onto Chancery Lane.
‘I’ve been making a few enquiries about the lad like I said I would and it turns out that he’s generally regarded as a decent sort. Just to be on the safe side I had a word with him myself.’
When Olive forgot his instructions not to turn to look at him, he shook his head.
‘All very discreet, I promise you. I’ve been into that café where he meets Agnes a few times now – thinks a lot of him, the owner of it does – so I arranged to be there one morning when he was coming off his night shift and I knew Agnes wouldn’t be around and I made it my business to fall into conversation with him, like.’
The sergeant gave a small sigh. ‘Lost his father when he was younger so now he’s pretty much the main breadwinner for the family. I reckon he’s a son any chap could be proud of.’
Guessing that he was thinking of his own lost son Olive felt a stab of sympathy for him but she was too tactful to say that she had guessed what had caused his deep sigh.
Instead she said. ‘I’m really grateful to you for going to so much trouble, Sergeant Dawson. You’ve put my mind at ease. Like I said when we first talked about it, it isn’t up to me to tell Agnes what she can and can’t do, but since she doesn’t have a mother or any relatives of her own I can’t help but feel responsible for her.’
‘It’s to your credit that you do. But you needn’t fear for her with young Ted,’ Sergeant Dawson assured her, noting approvingly how his pupil manoeuvred the van into position for the right turn that would take them onto Chancery Lane and from there onto Holborn itself, past Holborn Circus and then down to St Paul’s Cathedral, where they would turn round and make their way back.
A November chill was griping the air now, mist and even fog rolling in from the river early in the morning and then again when the afternoon faded into an early dusk. Winter was round the corner and with it the rationing of butter and bacon from mid-December. Olive shivered a little as she concentrated on her driving. The first bombs of the war with Germany had already been dropped on the Shetland Islands; the Royal Oak had been sunk at her base in Scapa Flow by a German torpedo with the loss of over eight hundred men. The papers were warning about the danger to British shipping from German submarines and their deadly torpedoes. The red double-decker London bus in front of them pulled into the kerb at a bus stop, causing Olive to change down and wait for it to set off again because the road was too narrow and too busy for her to risk overtaking it. She didn’t like overtaking, but Sergeant Dawson said that she was going to have to get used to doing so. The bus set off eventually, the rank smell of the diesel coming from its exhaust making Olive wrinkle her nose and think longingly of the comforting warmth of the vegetable soup she’d made earlier in the day for their tea tonight.
‘I do wish that Mum would let us go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais, and stop treating me like a child, especially now that we’ve got our new frocks,’ Tilly said wistfully, repeating a now familiar complaint as she and Agnes sat listening to the wireless whilst Dulcie read Picture Post. Olive had gone out straight after tea to a WVS meeting, and the three girls were on their own in the house as Sally was working nights.
‘If you don’t want your mother treating you like a kid, Tilly, then you should show her that you aren’t and stop behaving like one,’ Dulcie told her.
‘What do you mean?’ Tilly asked.
Dulcie gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Well, for a start I’d never let my ma tell me that I couldn’t go out dancing if I wanted to. I’d just tell her I was going.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Tilly protested.
‘Then go without telling her,’ Dulcie told her.
Tilly gazed at her. ‘You mean go to the Hammersmith Palais without Mum knowing?’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, Tilly, you can’t do that,’ Agnes protested, shocked.
‘Course she can, if she wants to,’ Dulcie argued. ‘That’s if she’s got the guts to do it and she isn’t really too scared. All she’s got to do is tell her mother that she’s going somewhere else, like the pictures, and then go to the Palais instead.’ Dulcie gave another shrug. ‘Simple.’
‘You mean lie to my mother?’ Tilly asked uncertainly.
It would serve Olive right if Tilly did go to the Palais behind her back, Dulcie decided. She was well aware of the fact that her landlady disapproved of her and was determined to protect her precious daughter from what she saw as Dulcie’s influence. It would be amusing to persuade Tilly to go behind her back.
‘What do you want to do, Tilly? Only be allowed to go to boring church dances for the rest of your life whilst other girls are having fun at proper dances? If you ask me I’d say that it’s your mother’s fault if you have to lie to her to do what any other girl your age can take for granted. Of course, if you want to stay tied to your mother’s apron strings all your life and never be allowed to make your own mind up about what you want to do, then that’s up to you.’
Dulcie’s challenging words were fanning the flames of Tilly’s resentment of her mother’s refusal to let her go to the Hammersmith Palais. Dulcie was right: her mother was wrong to keep on treating her like a child. She thought yearningly of how much she wanted to be allowed to be properly grown up. As Dulcie had said, other girls her age went to proper dances and their mothers didn’t treat them as though they were still schoolgirls. A reckless determination took hold of her.
‘Dulcie is right, Agnes,’ she announced. ‘We’ll go this Saturday. We can tell Mum that we’re going to the pictures, and then when we get back and she can see that we’re perfectly safe then we can tell her where we’ve been. Everything will be all right then because Mum will understand that I’m old enough to go to proper dances,’ Tilly insisted when Agnes continued to look uneasy.
Agnes was looking at her uncertainly but Tilly knew the other girl wouldn’t go against her. Agnes was too gentle for that.
‘It’s the only way to make her see that we’re properly grown up,’ she insisted, adding, ‘You don’t want our new dresses to be wasted on church socials, do you, Agnes?’
‘But how can we wear them to the pictures?’
Agnes had a point, Tilly recognised. But thankfully Dulcie had a solution for the problem.
‘You’ll just have to take them with you in a carrier bag and then change into them in the ladies’.’
Carried away