One day they would be sisters, when she and Callum were . . . but no, Sally couldn’t even think the word ‘married’ because she knew if she did she would blush and then her mother would ask her why.
As Sally had discovered this Christmas, some things were too new to tell even the most loving of mothers and the closest of friends, some things were so special, so magical and so longed for that they could only be shared with one special person, and thought about in private.
‘That will be your father,’ her mother announced now, her face lighting up as she heard the sound of a key in the front door.
Sally’s father had a good job working as a senior clerk at the Town Hall. As always when he came home, he put an arm round his wife and his daughter, drawing them close, as he asked, ‘And how are my best girls?’
Oh yes, she was one of the luckiest girls in Liverpool, Sally acknowledged with so much to be thankful for.
And it had been the most wonderful Christmas, starting two days before Christmas Eve when she and Morag had decorated the Christmas tree her parents had brought home from St John’s Market, along with a large turkey and enough vegetables and treats, her father had teased her mother, to feed them all for a month. Whilst her mother had sat and watched, and her father had tested the pretty Christmas tree lights from the previous year, Sally had lovingly explained to Morag the family significance of each precious tree ornament. There had been the delicate tin candle holders that held the bright red wax candles, which were never lit in case they caused a fire. The candle holders had originally belonged to her grandparents, and it took a steady hand to clip them securely upright onto the tree’s branches. Then there had been the glass baubles, some of them predating Sally’s own birth, others bought new each year of her life, and with so many happy memories of previous Christmases that unpacking them was like rediscovering old friends.
As the afternoon light had faded into evening and her mother had switched on the lights in the comfortable sitting room – with its dark green damask-covered three-piece suite, its curtains and cushions made from paisley-patterned fabric, bought on special order from Lewis’s in Liverpool; the dark green and gold patterned fitted carpet that her father had insisted on, even though her mother protested that it was far too expensive – Sally had seen the tears in Morag’s eyes.
But it had been her mother who got up from her chair to come over to them and put her arm tenderly round Morag, telling Sally quietly, ‘Darling, go and put the kettle on, will you?’
When Sally had come back into the sitting room, Morag had been smiling, albeit somewhat tremulously, and later, when they were back at the hospital, Morag had told her emotionally, ‘You have the most wonderful parents, Sally, especially your mother.’
On Christmas Eve they had all gone together to the church where Sally had been christened and confirmed, and after Midnight Mass, with the crispness of frost in the air, neighbours and friends had been warmly welcomed back to number 28 Lilac Avenue for a glass of sherry and the mince pies that Sally and Morag had helped to bake. With Sally sharing her own room with Morag over Christmas, and Callum sleeping in the small box-room, the house had been full, but in the most wonderful way. Sally’s father and Callum insisting on cooking breakfast on Christmas Day after church, laughing and joking with one another, her mother keeping an eye on the turkey, before they had all settled down in the front room to open their presents.
Then there had been Christmas lunch itself. Her mother was a wonderful cook and, of course, Sally and Morag had been set to work helping with the veg, and decorating the table in the morning room, extended for the guests, and looking very bright and Christmassy with its white napery and the red and gold crackers purchased in Lewis’s Christmas department earlier in the month.
The house had been filled with the scents of Christmas, roasting turkey, the sharp smell of the sprouts grown in the Johnsons’ own garden, the scent of the pine needles from the tree, the hot smell of the multi-coloured tree lights, her mother’s lily of the valley perfume and the very grown-up Nights in Paris perfume both Sally and Morag were wearing in honour of the special occasion. The paper garlands her father and Callum had put up over the ceiling moved in the draught from the constant opening and closing of doors, and the sound of laughter and lively conversation filled the air.
Of course, Sally’s mother had been at the centre of all the activity, a commanding officer quietly managing her troops as they all worked to get the best lunch of the year onto the table.
Then on Boxing Day some of the neighbours had come over, and there had been a singsong round the piano, Sally listening with pride and love to Callum’s good strong baritone.
Oh, yes, it had been the very best of Christmases, though with even happier Christmases to come, Sally was sure of it.
December 1938
Sally couldn’t bear to look as she walked past the cemetery on her way home to Lilac Avenue, increasing her pace and turning her face from the place where her mother was buried. She could still hardly accept that her mother was dead.
It had been such a long hard road from those early days of hope that somehow the doctors were wrong, followed by the disbelief, despair and even anger that someone as special as her mother should be struck down by such a cruel illness, the long-drawn-out days, weeks and then months of her decline and the terrible pain she had suffered with that decline. Then – and Sally could still hardly bear to think about this – those last days when it had seemed impossible that the emaciated tiny human frame – tortured by pain and trying so bravely not to betray the extent of her suffering – lost in the bed that she and Morag kept immaculately hospital pristine and neat, could actually be her mother.
Her mother had tried so bravely not to distress those she loved by revealing how much pain she was in, but of course Sally had known. How could she, as a nurse, not know?
Morag had been so wonderful – the best of good friends, truly an angel – taking over the most intimate nursing of Sally’s mother as though she had been her own when Sally had needed to leave her mother’s bedside to give way to her tears. Sally’s heart lifted now with the knowledge that when she got home, having unexpectedly been told that she could finish her shift several hours early, she would probably find Morag already there.
‘You are so kind,’ Sally had told Morag.
‘It is a privilege to do this for your mother, Sally, after all she has done for me,’ Morag replied.
And Morag hadn’t just helped with the nursing. Whenever she was off duty, and Sally still working, she’d gone round to Lilac Avenue to cook a hot meal for Sally’s father, and take over some of the chores that Sally’s mother could no longer do. Just as though they had indeed been sisters they had worked together to nurse Sally’s mother and give her father what comfort they could. Callum had played his part too, sitting and talking with her father in the evenings.
Sally was past the cemetery now and could allow herself to breath normally again although that felt wrong when her beloved mother was no longer breathing. She and her father would never stop mourning her and missing her, Sally knew.
As she turned into Lilac Avenue through the windows of its houses she could see Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. Christmas was only a matter of days away but Sally couldn’t bear to think about it. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting to celebrate Christmas without her mother.
Rather than use her front door key Sally went round to the kitchen. As she put her hand on the door knob, what she saw through the frosted glass in the top half of the door froze her in shocked disbelief. The image of two people embracing might be fuzzy and distorted by the thick glass, their features obscured, but for Sally there was no mistaking what they were doing and who they were.
Morag and her father were in one another’s arms and Morag was kissing her father – not compassionately as the best friend of his daughter, but intimately on the mouth, in the manner of a lover.
Filled with revulsion, trembling with disbelief, Sally stepped into the kitchen as Morag