Later that night, when she and Tilly were in bed, Agnes whispered across to her, ‘Do you really think it’s all right for us to go to the Hammersmith Palais without telling your mother, Tilly?’
‘Of course it is,’ Tilly assured her. ‘Like Dulcie said, if we let her, Mum will keep on treating us like schoolgirls for ever.’
Agnes admired Tilly too much to doubt her, but the thought of lying to Tilly’s mother, who had been so kind to her, was an uncomfortable weight on her conscience. At the orphanage lying was considered a very serious sin indeed.
She was still feeling worried and uncomfortable about Tilly’s plans for Saturday night the next day, when she found Ted waiting for her at the entrance to the station, after work.
‘Thought we’d have a cuppa together, if you’ve got time,’ Ted told her gruffly.
‘Of course I’ve got time,’ Agnes told him as he fell into step beside her.
The familiar warmth of the café was a welcome relief from the cold wind outside, and Agnes nodded her head when Ted asked her, ‘Cuppa and a teacake?’ before making her way to ‘their’ table next to the window, from where they could look out and watch the world go by. Not that they could look through it now with the blackout in place. And even if they had been able to, there wouldn’t have been much to see, Agnes acknowledged, as she waited for Ted to rejoin her. Not with it going dark by teatime, and no lighting of any kind allowed on the streets.
It wasn’t long after Ted had given their order over the counter before they were served, and Ted had poured them each a cup of tea.
‘Summat’s up,’ he announced after noting the way Agnes’s head drooped as she stirred her tea. ‘Old Smithy’s not been getting you upset, has he?’
Agnes shook her head. ‘No, he’s really nice to me now. Well, most of the time. Sometimes he shouts when his feet are bothering him.’
‘So if it isn’t old Smithy that’s making you look so glum, what is it?’ Ted pressed.
Reluctantly Agnes unburdened herself to him.
After he had heard her out Ted gave a soft whistle. ‘That Dulcie’s a one, isn’t she?’ he announced. ‘Persuading Tilly to lie to her ma.’
‘Tilly’s been wanting to go to the Hammersmith Palais for ages,’ Agnes told him, not wanting to portray her friend in a bad light. ‘She says that once we’ve been and we get home safely then her mother will stop worrying and let us go without us having to pretend that we aren’t doing.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Ted told her. ‘Mas don’t take kindly to being lied to.’
‘Tilly says it isn’t exactly lying. It’s just pretending that we’re going to the pictures, ’ Agnes defended her.
Ted could see that Agnes was getting upset so he didn’t pursue the subject any further but inwardly he had already made up his mind that on Saturday night, come hell or high water, he intended to be at the Hammersmith Palais to make sure that Agnes didn’t come to any harm. Poor kid. He could see that she didn’t like the idea of deceiving her landlady but that she was too good a friend to Tilly to betray her.
He did have some sympathy with Tilly, though. There was, after all, nothing like being told you couldn’t do something to make a person want to do it. But lying to her ma in order to do it – that wasn’t a good idea at all – and Ted had a strong suspicion that it would all end in tears. In his home, had his dad still been alive, it would have ended up with his dad’s belt being applied to the back of the offending child’s legs.
All day Friday, Tilly’s excitement grew. She dare not think about Saturday night when she was at work in case she went off into her favourite daydream – the one in which Dulcie’s handsome brother suddenly materialised at her side and asked her to dance – and someone noticed and she got told off.
Of course she felt bad about deceiving her mother, but she tried not to think about that. Instead she thought about how exciting it was all going to be and how wonderful she and Agnes were going to look in their new frocks. A small pang of guilt did strike her when she thought about their new dresses. Mum had been so good about letting them have that velvet instead of the plaid, and the new clothes they’d had made from the fabric they’d bought at Portobello Market made both her and Agnes look ever so grown up. Even her mother had said so when they’d shown them off to her. Instead of feeling guilty she had to think instead about being grown up, like Dulcie had said, and proving to her mother that they were old enough to be treated like adults.
Whilst Olive put Tilly’s growing air of tension and excitement down to the fact that her daughter would be wearing her new dress at the coming church dance, Dulcie, who knew better, observed it with slightly malicious glee.
Oh, it was going to be one in the eye for Tilly’s mother, who treated her, Dulcie, as though she didn’t really want her there, when she found out that Tilly had defied her. Olive’s protective manner towards Tilly still irked Dulcie, reminding her as it did of her own mother’s favouring of Edith. Well, let Olive go around with her nose in the air, thinking that her Tilly told her everything and thought she was wonderful; she’d soon find out that she was wrong. Dulcie knew instinctively that Olive would be hurt by Tilly’s deception but she didn’t care. Olive needed bringing down a peg or two. The fact that Dulcie’s machinations might cause a rift between mother and daughter wasn’t something that weighed on her conscience. Why should it? It was plain daft of Olive to try and keep Tilly a kid for ever. In a way she was doing them both a favour.
On Friday evening, when Tilly announced casually that she and Agnes were going to the pictures on Saturday night, Olive didn’t think anything of it. Her head was full of all the things she needed to do for Christmas, only a month away now. She’d got a goose on order, and luckily she’d been able to get in a bit of a supply of butter from the grocer she always used, ahead of the rationing.
‘I expect you’ll be going home for Christmas, Dulcie?’ she asked, her question causing Dulcie to frown. She hadn’t really given much thought to Christmas, but now that Olive had mentioned it and made it plain that she expected her to go home because no doubt she didn’t want her here, Dulcie felt like digging her heels in and being awkward.
‘Well, I’d like to, of course,’ she agreed, giving an exaggerated sigh as she added, ‘especially with my brother expecting to be coming home from France on leave, but I don’t think there’s going to be room for me. Of course, if you don’t want me here . . .’
‘Of course we do, don’t we, Mum?’ Tilly immediately jumped in. ‘It will be more fun if you’re here, Dulcie. We always have a bit of a party on Boxing Day, don’t we, Mum?’
‘I’d hardly call it a party, Tilly, at least not the sort of party Dulcie would enjoy,’ Olive responded pointedly, giving Dulcie a sharp look as though she guessed what she was up to. ‘It’s just a few of our neighbours, that’s all.’
The news that Dulcie’s brother would be home on leave over Christmas had brought a pink glow to Tilly’s cheeks. She could hardly wait for tomorrow night and being able to ask Dulcie more about her brother without her own mother listening in and giving her that disapproving look.
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to put you out,’ said Dulcie with pretend concern.
‘You won’t be putting me out, Dulcie,’ Olive felt obliged to deny. ‘I just thought you would want to be with your own family.’
‘But, Mum, Sally’s going to be staying, and Agnes, of course, and it wouldn’t be the same if Dulcie wasn’t here,’ Tilly protested.
It certainly wouldn’t, Olive thought grimly, but with Tilly such a staunch supporter of Dulcie there was nothing she could say or do other than allow the subject to be dropped, and rework her shopping plans to make sure that she bought in enough to feed all of them.
As she said to Sally later, if